


Sleeping Beauties

by NightcoreNation



Category: League of Legends RPF
Genre: 100 Thieves, Cloud9, Clutch Gaming, Counter Logic Gaming, Echo Fox, FlyQuest, Golden Guardians, M/M, Optic Gaming - Freeform, Team Liquid, Team Solo Mid, i am a perfectionist, i know i could have just put ensemble, more people but I have enough tags, third time I had to redo all the tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-05-03 02:02:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14558439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightcoreNation/pseuds/NightcoreNation
Summary: When one player from each team gets trapped in an "eternal slumber" by an unknown entity each team must battle it out on the rift to try and help their fallen players regain consciousness. The rules are simple: bracket style, you win a game and your sleeping member wakes up, but be the ultimate loser and your player is trapped in their slumber forever. There is only one twist, the remaining teammates are not just battling it out online, oh no, they are battling it out in the actual game.Welcome to Summoner's Rift, and remember there is no way out of this!





	1. His Game

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place right after playoffs. I know that some teams have announced that some players are off their roster for Summer Split, but I'm just going to have it so that they are the same as who played in Spring. I am going to try to give equal screen time to all the teams, but that is hard, so sorry if I neglect your favorite team. Hope you enjoy!

He waited for the alarm to sound. He waited to bring them all here. He has been waiting to do this for far too long, but patience is a virtue. The alarm finally rang, and with a simple wave of his arms ten rooms were suddenly occupied with sixty unsuspecting victims, six people per room of course. He looked at the monitors in front of him, watching all of them sleep. They seemed so peaceful, so helpless. It was time, the man thought as he evaporated than showed up in the first room. He went up to the small, sleeping Korean and put his hand on the boy's forehead, mumbled a phrase incoherently, and evaporated again. He repeated this until he finally finished with a German than reappeared in the room with ten monitors, each of which had a separate room on them.

The first step was completed, now for step two. He focused on one person in each room, willing them to wake, and they did exactly that. All at once, one person in each room shot straight into a sitting position.  _Now_ , he projected into the mind's of the people who were awake,  _wake up every member of your team you can, but know one of your precious little players won't wake up. After everyone who can be awake is awake I will go into a little bit more detail, but for now my little coaches, I'd recommend doing as I said_. He smirked as he watched the coaches wake their players, but the best part was when they couldn't. The confusion on their faces was his favorite part. He couldn't wait to see the look on their faces when he told them a few more details. This is, indeed, going to be a fun game.

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Repeared could barely process what the voice was saying because he was too busy wondering where it had come from. It spoke in an American accent that sounded nothing like his own voice occupying his head, but he didn't have time to question it. He had to wake up the boys, or who knew what was going to happen. He got up from the somewhat comfortable bed wondering where he was, and how he got to where he was in the first place. His thoughts quickly moved to the back of his mind as his eyes caught sight of his five players asleep on beds lining three walls.

He rushed to his left and shook Licorice. When the blonde's blue eyes opened they were filled with confusion. "Repeared?" he questioned more than stated, "Where are we?"

The Cloud 9 coach replied, "Don't know, wake others," and with that, a very confused Eric got out of his bed. He moved towards Smoothie, who woke up almost immediately after being given a light shake. The same could not be made for the other three. At this point, Repeared couldn't even tell which member wasn't supposed to wake. It was the curse of having three heavy sleepers on the same team. With the help of Andy and Eric, Repeared managed to wake up Sneaky, who after realizing that something wasn't right, got up decently fast. That left two, well technically one, but figuring out which one had the ability to wake up was no easy task.

A sigh and the phrase, "Come on, five more minutes," was all Repeared needed to know who could wake up, and sadly who wouldn't. "Jensen," Zach said calmly, almost too calmly for the situation they were in, "Open your eyes." For once, Jensen cooperated and opened his eyes, but immediately closed them again.

He furrowed his brows and asked, "What is going on?"

Collectively the team made incomprehensible sounds, along with a few shoulder shrugs.

Andy was the first to say anything that anyone could understand, "Honestly, I have no idea, let's just try to wake up Dennis again."

"No," Repeared replied plainly, which got the attention of everyone on the team, even Jensen.

"What do you mean 'No,' do you know something we don't Repeared?" Zach asked, slowly backing away from his coach. At this point, Jensen was fully awake and started to take in his surroundings. He was in a small room with black walls, and one dim light on the ceiling in the middle of the cramped room. There were five unoccupied beds, and one with a sleeping jungler in it. Something seemed off, well besides the fact that he had no idea where he was, let alone how he got there.

"The voice said one person wouldn't get up," Repeared sounded almost saddened by his own words.

Jensen spoke up, "What voice, and what did it mean by one person wouldn't wake up?"

"I don't know," Repeared sighed turning his head towards Dennis. Everyone followed where he was looking, pained expressions on all of their faces, "Let's just hope he was serious about telling us what is going on after everyone is awake."

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"Alfonso, he isn't going to wake up," Haunzter tried to reason with his support. Mithy had been trying to wake Zven up for the last minute or two, and he has shown no signs of waking up anytime soon. Kevin tried to be the rational one in his team for once since Mike was in shock about what was happening, Søren was trying to figure a way out of their small room(to no avail), and SSong, well he was just being totally confused and utterly useless at the moment.

"How can you say that? He has to wake up," Mithy argued, almost like he was trying to convince himself of that fact. They have been so close for so long, to think that he would never get to talk to Jesper again or hear his goofy laugh, was impossible for him to think about. So, he carried on with trying to shake him awake, but with no luck.

"Because," Kevin sighed exhaustedly, "Sang-soo said that one person wouldn't wake up and that the voice would tell us more details after everyone is awake." By this time the rest of the team was paying attention to their small disagreement, but still staying silent.

"Newsflash everyone is awake. How do you-" Mithy started but was soon cut off by a booming laugh inside of everyone's heads. Alfonso immediately grabbed Jesper's hand for comfort, as the laugh continued to ring throughout his mind. By the look's of his teammates, they had heard it too.

_Now that everyone is awake, which took longer than expected, thank you Nicolaj for that, I can now tell my plans for all of you._  There was a pause, and everyone looked at each other, unsure of what to even think at the moment. Mithy squeezed Zven's hand harder as the voice continued,  _As all of you can tell, one of your teammates is a little unconscious at the moment, but that doesn't have to be permanent. All you have to do to help your precious little teammate is simple: don't be the ultimate loser. Now I know you are wondering what the ultimate loser is, and I will explain, don't get your boxers in a twist. See all of you are going to do what you do best, play league. I have set up a bracket-style tournament for all of you to play in against the other teams._  It was at that moment that TSM realized for the first time that they were not the only ones. Other teams have been taken as well, and that just made them more curious as to who was just like Jesper in an unresponsive state. 

The voice paused, almost knowing that the information had to sink in until he continued.  _Anyway bracket style, best of ones, coaches play the position of the teammate who is incapacitated. Seem simple enough? Well, hold on for a little bit as I get a few more pieces put into place. Oh, I almost forgot, how silly of me! The ultimate loser is the sleeping member of the team that gets last in the bracket, and in turn, will never wake up again. I'll be back in a little bit to tell all of you who will be playing in the first game, talk to you soon!_ Everyone turned to Jesper with despair painted across all of their faces, especially his support of two years.

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Everything was black, well not exactly black, more of an unknown light source allowing a little grey scale to be added to the black. The small support could do nothing but sit in the middle of where the unseeable light seemed to radiate from. It's not like he could move; his feet were chained to the floor, as well as his hands. The most Vincent could move would probably only be a foot or two. 

Then he felt it; a small spark moving from the outside of his body, making its way inside to his core. As soon as the spark reached its final destination it was like a small explosion just took place in Vincent's stomach, and every part of him was being scattered into the air. Then, right as he thought that he would never be whole again, cells started to rearrange themselves into their original positions. Sadly, shackles were still locked around his ankles and wrists, and he was still in a grey scale prison, but there were a few things different now. There were others. 

They were all chained as well, but as he studied all of the figures more closely, he realized he knew who they were. The perfect circle of hostages in the completely grey scaled world they were in consisted of NA LCS players. Vincent looked to his left recognizing Jason who was about three feet away from him. After Jason the order went: Olleh, Tristan, Fabian, Jesper, Dennis, Josh, Samson, then finally directly to his right was Ssumday. Vincent kept telling himself that this was some sort of messed up dream, but the problem with that was it didn't seem like a dream. He had already tried pinching himself awake, but that only caused him a little pain in his arm.

Josh, well being Josh, spoke up first, "What the fuck is going on? Where the hell are we and how the fuck did we get here?''

It seemed like a few people were about to reply, but before they got the chance a human-like figure wearing a black cloak appeared in the middle of the circle. This drew a few obscenities from multiple player's mouths, of course including Josh.

_Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?_  The cloaked man seemed to project the words into everyone's mind, but they were definitely directed to a certain toxic jungler. All of the players seemed a little taken aback by the new voice in their head, but all of them still remained standing, staring at the figure with a mix of fear and curiosity.

Josh didn't reply, maybe it was from his fear of the figure, maybe it was because he just didn't have any sarcasm left to reply with, but most likely it was because of Sam shaking his head and mouthing the word no over and over again until Josh finally closed his mouth. Sam seemed to be the only one that Josh would listen to out of the other players in the room, but that was because of their history.

The man laughed, then continued,  _For what is going on I will explain that to you in a little bit. Where we are, well that is a little complicated, but to put it simply, in a dreamland that I have created for you all to stay in until your teammates have done as they were told. Oh, and you got here via magic, I mean, I thought that was pretty obvious. Back to what is going on, you are all part of my little game. Now my game is simple: your teammates will play a game of league. I have set up a bracket of who will play who. Your coaches will take your spot on the team, and they will fight to wake you up because to them you are all unconscious._

This caused a murmur to fill the room, everyone not wanting to believe what was happening.  _You haven't even heard the best part yet_ , the voice said almost mocking them,  _If you are the ultimate loser, meaning your team loses every game in the bracket, then you'll never wake up! Now isn't that something much better to make a commotion about!_

He wasn't wrong, that did get a much bigger reaction than his previous statement. Some of the faces of the players on the lesser performing teams seemed to fall even more than the rest, for good reason. Never waking up again, and being trapped in complete darkness, was much worse than death.

_Now that you have been properly informed, it is time for me to take my leave and set up the first game. Have fun playing in the darkness!_  were the last words the players heard before they felt that all too familiar spark, and were whisked back into isolation.

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To say that Doublelift was a little freaked out would be a colossal understatement. It wasn't every day when a whole esports league was kidnapped by a man who seemed to have magical powers.  It was also terrifying that the most logical explanation to all of this was magic. With everything that has been going on in his life, this seemed to just add to all the drama and confusion that he did not particularly like.

The team had been trying to come up with a game plan for playing against all the teams, but they weren't too concerned about that. Cain could pretty easily adapt to playing support with the help of Peter, everyone's main concern was the support that was unconscious on the bed to the right of the now silent team. To be honest, there wasn't really much else to say; they had finished first in the spring split, and if they couldn't win a game with this much on the line, then they would deserve all the guilt of losing.

The only thing left to do was wait for the sinister voice that erupted in their heads, and just like he was listening to Peter's thoughts the voice began talking,  _Hello my prey, I hope you have been using your time wisely._  Everyone from Team Liquid cringed when they heard the word prey, it just showed how helpless they really were.  _All of the pieces are in place and I am ready for the first game. Now I know all of you must be curious as to who it is, so I will delay no longer. Game one of five in the first bracket will be Optic Gaming vs Team Liquid!_  

They all looked at each other, they were playing first, and against Optic. It definitely should be an easy game, but nothing was set in stone, and Jake made sure to remind them all of that with his infamous "Don't get cocky speech."

Eugene was the first one to actually realize a kind of big missing piece of well... everything, "Wait where are the computers?" He asked, not really trying to make too big a deal out of his curiosity.

Peter replied matter-of-factly, "They are probably in another room, so we can't contact someone for help."

After that another voice chimed in, _Actually, you won't be using any computers._

This caused a few jaws to drop to the ground. That statement, or thought, didn't make any sense to anybody. Impact spoke what was on everybody's mind first, "Then how we play?"

_Simple, let me just tune everybody else in on the conversation._ He paused then continued,  _One more thing I forgot to mention, you may or may not be playing league in a different perspective then you are used to._  Most people understood what that meant, but were too utterly bewildered to even register what was about to be said.  _To wake your friends you must win a game in the first person!_


	2. Bracket 1 Game 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this rather long chapter. I know that my game description and team comp may not be the best, but I tried. I also tried to spell/grammar check, but I'm sure I missed something. Apologizing ahead of time is always better, right?

"What does he mean by the first person?" Zaboutine questioned, hoping it didn't mean what he thought it meant. It isn't possible to just be zapped into a game. Is it? Thomas was confused, to say the least. He just hoped that it was the language barrier that made him think this. Magic does not exist, therefore people cannot be magically put into a video game. Right?

Daerek was the first to speak up, "Well I think it means that we are going to be put into League, like play it as if we were the characters." Lemon was just as confused and frightened as the others, his logical mind trying to find a truth that never existed. Trying to connect the pieces of who this mysterious voice is, and how to possibly get out of their current situation. They finished next to last in the regular season, not even making playoffs, and playing against TL was not ideal. He was realistic, and realistically they didn't have the best shot at beating them, especially since Tristan was the one to remain sleeping. He was, or is, one of the most consistent players on the team, and without him, Optic has to get extremely lucky to win at all, let alone against Liquid. 

"I don't understand how this is going to work. Will we pick what champions we play? How will we communicate? How do we use special abilities? Will we know how cooldowns work?" before Daerek could continue voicing more of his analytical thoughts out loud, someone interrupted him. 

"It doesn't matter. We will figure it out when the time comes. All that matters is winning, and getting Tristan back," Matt retaliated. He wasn't as dumb as he looked or sometimes acted. Daerek didn't necessarily agree that his questions didn't matter, but it was a universal opinion that his whole team had that Tristan did. 

"You're right," Derek spoke up. He has been silently observing the conversation with Arrow until Matt finally said those words. This was for Tristan. He didn't deserve to be stuck like that forever. He was kind, most of the time, not without showing some toxicity here and there, but to be honest every League players is toxic in their own regard. That is when they heard it. A booming voice in their minds,  _The game will commence in 30 seconds, be ready_.

Optic looked at each other, unsure of what their fate would be. Then, in unison, they all looked at Tristan. He looked so peaceful on the bed, hair ruffled, face slack. This was the reason they were going to play their hearts out. They were going to win. They had to, for Tristan. The players felt a small spark coursing through their body, going to their core, then they were gone.

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_Welcome to Summoner's Rift, and remember there is no way out of this!_  The voice boomed. It seemed like it was coming from all around them. Xmithie looked around, they were in the starting circle on the blue side. It was odd to see the rift from this view. It was almost too real. There was a blue-tinted barrier preventing anyone from getting outside of the circle. Jake looked at his other teammates, a mix of confusion and wonder on their faces. They still looked exactly the same, they weren't champions, nor did it seem they had any special abilities, that's when everyone's faces popped up on the barrier. 

They all looked at each other in confusion, until Eugene decided, on his own, that touching the spot his face occupied on the barrier would be a great idea. For once, Eugene's impulses had a positive outcome. A list of champion popped up, mainly for the midlane. He looked at us raising an eyebrow, almost as if he was asking what he should pick. 

"Go Azir," Cain replied as the whole team touched the barrier. One by one everyone got their champions picked. They decided to work from the top down. Sion went top, Trundle went jungle, of course, Azir went mid, Caitlyn went adc, and Morgana went support. It seemed like a pretty good team comp, especially since they had no idea what Optic was picking. They picked what abilities they wanted, then they started to feel it. The mind splitting headache, that made it seem like someone ran over their heads with a truck. A big truck. 

When everyone could think again, they looked up to see almost no change in appearance,  _almost_. Impact had an ax in his hand, Jake held a club, Eugene wielded a spear, Peter was holding a gun, and Cain had purple energy coming from his fingers. They have definitely become the champions they chose. They did not expect this. Eugene was the first to notice a screen behind them showing pictures of items. They soon figured out how to work it, and bought their starting items. Then they heard the voice again,  _Minions will be spawning in 30 seconds. Make this entertaining my beauties_. The barrier blocking them from moving was removed, then they rushed to their lanes.

After separating, they realized that they could somehow hear everything everyone was saying, so that was good to know. Then they started calling out the team setup for Optic. They were playing, Ornn top, Olaf jungle, Ryze mid, Ashe adc, and Tahm Kench support. The team also found out that the one unconscious was PowerOfEvil, which was a little disconcerting, but they still had their eyes on the prize: waking up Olleh. 

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Laning phase started off quiet since everyone had no idea how anything worked. As the minions started to rush down the lanes, the players quickly realized that they hurt, well only a little. Getting hit by a normal minion was the equivalent to getting stung by a bee, but the junglers quickly realized the same could not be said for the other monsters. 

Akaadian winced as he was hit by the krugs, it wasn't like how the others described being hit by a minion. This was like being punched in the gut, and by someone who could throw a decent punch. Every time he misstepped or missed an axe, the pain coursing through his body reminded him of that. He couldn't even imagine what getting hit by a player felt like; he assumed not good. 

He slowly made his way through the jungle, trying not to take too much damage, that is when a familiar voice came over the headset, "Guys, I found out something cool, look at your left wrist." Matt did as Daerek commanded, and that is when he noticed a small metal bracelet, it looked plain with no significance whatsoever. That is when Lemon continued, "Now tilt your hand three times back and forth towards your body." The jungler once again listened to his support, and what he saw was almost insane. In holographic form, the bracelet project all of the normal stats that they would be able to see while playing normally. He soon noticed that he was level 3, and could get some special abilities. He reached out to what normally would be his Q and pressed it. As soon as he touched the ax icon it turned from black and white to color.

As if his mind was being read Daerek said, "It also shows your could downs. To use your specials is pretty straightforward, just think about using them." 

Matt was dumbfounded, "How do you know this?" he asked, generally curious.

The other Derek answered, "The older, the wiser," which made everyone on coms crack up, except Daerek who let out a sigh.

"What did I do to support amazing teammates like --" Lemon was cut off by screaming.

Matt immediately recognized Zig calling for help. He was being ganked. Akaadian tried his best to help his friend, but by the time he reached the top lane, the screaming ceased. He could see an exhausted looking Jake and Impact trying to avoid the stinging pain minions brought them. Zig didn't go down without a fight. As Matt showed up to help with the minions the two backed up under their turret and seemed to teleport back to base. 

"He's dead," Matt sighed, defeat evident in his voice.

"He'll respawn," Thomas argued. It was a valid point, but still, it didn't make him feel any better.

Then a voice cut in, "That was not something I enjoyed doing. 0/10 would not recommend," Derek joked.

"What happened?" Lemon questioned, always being the curious one.

"I died."

"No shit Sherlock. I meant after you died."

"Oh, after I felt the extreme pain that death brings, I was just in this blackish room. I don't really know how to describe it, except being surrounded by darkness. Then I felt the same thing we did when we were brought into the game, and was suddenly at spawn," Zig explained, satisfying Daerek's curiosity.

Matt, relieved, moved towards his wolf camp. He didn't want to imagine the pain Zig felt when he was attacked but had a feeling he would. It wasn't uncommon for a jungler to die, especially while playing against TL. How could they do that? How could they just attack another human like that? They could have killed Zig, well permanently. Matt then made the realization, he will have to fight the other team and possibly kill someone. Matt was not prepared for that, but he didn't have a choice. 

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Xmithie turned his attention to bot, trying to get a lead for Cain. He knew that Pobelter could handle himself against Zaboutine, he was just worried about his coach. So, he roamed bot, and set up for another gank. This one resulted in multiple teleports being wasted as well as a dead bot lane. To put it simply: Optic was not doing well. Sure, they got one successful gank mid, but all that did was close the gold difference by an insignificant amount. It didn't help that all the objectives went in favor of Team Liquid. 

Soon three dragons turned into three dragons and baron, but something interesting did happen during one of the team fights, Zaboutine died. Sure, that wasn't a good outcome, since it was an ace, but when Thomas experienced his first death, he was not alone. He saw a figure, playing with the shackles locked around his wrists and ankles. After further inspection, he realized he knew who the figure was.

"Tristan?" Thomas questioned rather than stated. He thought to himself that it couldn't be, but when the head turned toward him, he knew. Even before he spoke, he knew.

"Thomas? How did you get here?" Tristan asked, concern in his voice. He didn't want any more of his teammates, his friends, to be in the same position he was in. Tristan knows that if his coach was stuck here with him then his team would never win. They need him, well both of them, but it wasn't like he knew a magic spell to just get out of his greyscale prison. 

"Oh, I died," Zaboutine replied plainly, frightening the midlaner.

"What do you mean you died?" Tristan asked, confusion and fear lacing his voice. If his coach was really dead, what did it make him? The figure said he was unconscious, not dead, but that could have easily changed since then. 

"I meant in-game," Thomas could see Tristan relax his shoulders when he said that. Looking back, he may not have chosen the best words to say. He continued, "I don't know how much you know, but we are currently inside League, as in we are the champions. Probably, not the best idea to pick Tahm, because I can tell you from first-hand experience that getting eaten by Daerek is not a fun experience." This put a smile on Tristan's face, the midlaner was trying to imagine his coach being eaten by the support and laughed. 

Tristan's face then turned serious and asked the one question Thomas didn't want to answer, "Are you winning?"

By the look on Thomas' face, he already knew the answer. They were losing. This raised another question, "Why haven't I see any of the other guys if we are losing? I assume at least one other person died," but before Thomas had the chance to answer, he was gone. Tristan was now all alone, left with the fact that he couldn't do anything to help his team. He could only hope that his team could pull through, but deep down Tristan knew that he should start getting used to his shackles.

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"What do you mean you talked to Tristan?" Matt asked totally and utterly confused. The last time he saw his teammate he was closest to he was unconscious. It seemed almost impossible for his coach to be telling the truth, but there was magic involved, so the impossible was now possible. To think that magic was real almost made it seem like he was dreaming. Matt was taught ever since he was little that there was no such thing as magic, and now the one thing that he seemed to know all throughout his life was wrong. How different would his life be if he knew there was such thing as magic? More importantly, how can he do it? How can he cast a spell and make everything normal again?

"I mean," Thomas exasperated, "I was in the grey-scale thing that you guys experienced when you died, but Tristan was there. We saw each other and talked. He was in shackles. He just looked defeated. I am just wondering why I got to see him." This caused all the members to think. Why would Zaboutine get to see their missing mid, but not them? 

Lemon was the first to state a possibility, "Maybe it has to do with the fact that you're playing his position. It could be like you are linked or something, but honestly, I have no idea."

"Ask voice," those words seemed to come out of nowhere. Well, probably because they came from Arrow. He hasn't talked much due to the language barrier, and the fact that he has almost no idea what is going on other than the fact that they have to win, or Tristan won't wake up.

Before anyone could say anything else, the Optic team heard,  _It adds to entertainment value, but I really would recommend focusing, because you know, you're losing._  With that, the team tried to get back in the game, but the only turrets that were still standing for them were in their base, so that didn't make coming back easy, especially against a fully fed Caitlyn. All they could do was watch their base crumble, and hope their next game would be easier.

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"Guys we can do this, one more push bot and we win," Peter called, adrenaline racing through his veins. Playing always gave him a rush, but being in the game made that feeling multiple. The super minions were pushing towards the last inhibitor guarding the Nexus. With a few well-timed ultimates, Akaadian was the only Optic member alive, compared to the five Team Liquid players. They broke the last turret, setting their sights on the Nexus. As they were hitting it, cracks started to appear, and it started to slowly fall apart. That is when Peter noticed something inside the Nexus; Olleh.

"Guys," Peter said warily, "I think Olleh is in here." Before anyone could reply, or digest the information the Nexus fully broke, causing a still sleeping Olleh to fall out, luckily Jake had quick reflexes and caught him. Jake slowly lowered the sleeping support to the ground as everyone made their way over. They were all waiting for him to wake up, but it didn't seem like that would happen.

Soon the Optic members also surrounded the sleeping Korean, sadness on all of their faces. It was obvious why; they lost. Nobody said anything, they were just waiting. Then the voice came back into all of their heads,  _It looks like we have a winner, sorry for the delay, but I had to prepare for your arrival. Now, losers go back to your room and try to plan a strategy that doesn't get you demolished, unless you want a certain someone to remain unconscious._  With that, all the Optic members disappeared from the rift. The voice started projecting his thoughts,  _Don't worry he will wake up when I get you guys out of here. If there is one thing about me, I keep my word. Now, you all have the pleasure of watching all the other matches. Have fun my winners!_

All of Team Liquid felt a familiar pull in their gut, and with that, they all appeared in a room with a giant television, except one. Impact was the first to notice, "Where Olleh?"This caused every member to go through a slight panic, wondering where the support had gone.

"Guys, calm down. The voice said he would keep his word, and this may sound weird, but I believe him," Jake reasoned. If it was anyone but Jake there would have been a disagreement; he just has this quality that makes everything he says have a certain weight. Sure, he memed just like the rest of them, but when Jake said something serious, everybody listened. Not even five seconds later, a confused support appeared in the room, immediately being engulfed by his teammates.

Everybody was talking at once, which made it extremely hard for Olleh to try to translate, but he did manage to make out one phrase from the mess of words flying at him, "Do you know who else is unconscious?" He wasn't even sure who said it, but he just started rattling off names. As he went through the list of players, he purposefully saved one for last. Olleh knew when he said that Vincent was one of the people sleeping Peter would freak out. He understood that they played together for two years, but still with all the duoing they have been doing, it was like he didn't exist.

Strange enough, when Peter found out about Vincent, he didn't flip out, which would have been imagined, but stayed silent. His face turned to stone, stuck in a frown. He didn't say anything. He just stayed there, silently, because Peter knew he could do nothing. Vincent's fate was out of his hands. There was no way that he could save him. There was no way that he could help him. There was no way that Peter could comfort Vincent.

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"They won," Steve said relieved. He was currently in the TSM house watching the live stream with Andy. As soon as they found out what had happened they decided to watch the stream together. They may act like rivals, which they are to an extent, but they are friends. When every single twitter belonging to an NA player and coach sent a link to a stream at the same time, everyone knew something was up. They just didn't expect this. When every single owner they got in contact with informed them that they couldn't reach their players or coaches, they knew something was wrong. So, they invited all the owners to the TSM house to watch the stream together. 

Nobody knew what the stream was at that point; all they knew was the title; Life Deciding Games. With a title like that, nothing positive could be a possibility. As they watched the black screen white letters started to fill it, explaining the rules. At this point, Andy and Steve stopped all the phone calls that were currently taking place to watch the stream. Then, as the white letters stopped, the words _Game 1_ appeared on the screen followed by the Optic Gaming and Team Liquid logos. 

Steve had such a mix of emotions that he couldn't even tell what he was feeling. His team was first, which meant they didn't have to wait, they were playing Optic, which isn't necessarily the greatest team, but it was a best of 1, so anything could happen. At least Andy was there for him as the stream changed from the two logos to the rift. The game started, well, kind of. All the players looked confused, until Eugene decided to touch the barrier, "What a Eugene thing to do," commented Andy trying to lighten the mood. 

The obnoxious doorbell pulled Steve from his rememberings of how they got to the present, and the relief he felt when his team won. Andy went to the door to see Jack and Rick waiting anxiously. They soon came in and sat on the couch watching the screen intently. His team was surrounding an unconscious Olleh, and now he was wondering something, "Why isn't he awake?"

"It probably just takes a while," Andy answered, and so they continued to watch. Then, all the players acted as if they were listening to someone. The owners watched as the Optic members disappeared, soon followed by Team Liquid. The screen turned black. Soon after, it read  _Game 2_  and had the Counter Logic Gaming and FlyQuest logos displayed. 

"What just happened? Where are they?" Steve questioned, slightly panicked. His players were God knows where, and the last he knew one of them was unconscious, and he thought today was going to be a good day. Now, all of the NA LCS were currently missing and playing for their lives inside of the game. 

"Hey, relax. Your team won, if anything, we should be worried about Optic," Rick replied calmly. He was Rick Fox, after all, the man who looked like he could kill you, but really is the definition of a giant teddy bear. Plus, to say he had a way with words was an understatement. Right before he could reply, his phone went off, well it has been going off practically all day, but the noise it made was not the usual beep. It sounded almost threatening if a short beep could sound like that. When Steve checked his phone, he noticed that he got a picture from an unknown number. At this point, the other three owners were looking over his shoulder, wondering what the beep meant. As he opened the message, he saw what he believed to be a candid photo of his team around a very conscious Olleh.

"They're okay," Steve sighed as he turned his attention to the television, where the next game was about to begin. His team may be safe, but that didn't mean the teams belonging to the people sitting next to him were. Now, he had to be the strong one. He had to support his fellow owners, his friends. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof rip Optic, anyway comment what you thought, and any improvements I can make to the next chapters. I have finals coming up, so there may or may not be a delay on the next chapter, but if my procrastination kicks in, it will be out in a week. Yeet, bya.


	3. Bracket 1 Game 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to update. With the deadly combination of finals and writing block, I finally managed to finish this chapter with the help of depressing one hour Nightcore songs. Another apology for my bad grammar, I try to spellcheck, but I usually miss a lot of stuff.

_Now for those of you who did not just play in the last game_ , the voice blurted out,  _The winners, not so shockingly were Team Liquid. I mean really, who actually thought that Optic would win? Come on, think now or forever hold your peace. Nah, I don't think any of you actually believed in them. Anyway, the purpose of this thought intrusion is to tell all of you that the next game is Counter Logic Gaming vs FlyQuest, so be prepared. The game will start soon, I just have a few loose ends to clean up. Tally hoe young padawans_ , and with that amazing last goodbye, the voice left, leaving CLG a little confused.

"Tally hoe young padawans?" Huhi questioned, not sure what the final words in his head meant. His English was pretty good, but that last phrase made a total of zero sense to him, and by the looks of it, his teammates were pretty confused as well.

"I think," Trevor began, "Whoever that voice was and still is a complete nerd. I mean come on, what kind of kidnapper says that?" Jae-hyun was not disagreeing with the adc, it did make sense for the voice to be a nerd. What nonnerd with magical powers would kidnap a whole esports league? The answer is nobody. Which once again brings up the question, why do all of this in the first place? 

Darshan spoke up this time, "One that watches League." This caused all of CLG to laugh, leave it to them to make fun of a kidnapper that could hear everything they were saying, but that is what type of team they were. The ones to always lighten the mood, Trevor and Darshan were like that anyway. 

"Ok guys, as much as I like making fun of the creep that can hear everything we say, I think we should come up with a gameplan against FlyQuest,"Zikz interjected, going into coach mode. Tony had two modes: coach mode which was when he was coaching and being serious, or normal mode when he acts crazy and more childish than Trevor, which is saying something. 

"It depends on who's sleeping. We push against the coach filling the lane," Darshan replied like the answer was obvious.

"What if someone from bot is missing?" Tony fired back, "I'm not going to pretend that I am some support God. I just know simple mechanics and where to be. It doesn't mean my execution will be amazing, except if we play Xayah-Rakan."

"Don't worry I'll carry you, especially if we play Xayah-Rakan. No offense, but I've seen your Rakan, and it isn't the best. Definitely better than some coaches though," Trevor somewhat assured Tony.

"Thanks, I feel better already," Tony smirked looking at his whole team. They may not have been able to make playoffs, but they were still an amazing team. He believed in them; he hoped they could carry him because he wasn't exactly a support main. Tony was curious about why Vincent was the one that remained sleeping. Out of all the guys why him? He was new to the team, a little shy at first, unlike Yeu-jin who came out of the gate guns blazing. He thought that the voice would have chosen more of a legacy player, like Darshan or Huhi. Why Biofrost? Was it because of his previous run on TSM? Was it random? Was it for some other reason that he just didn't know? Probably.

Reignover interrupted his thoughts when he put his hand out and said, "For Vincent." It would be him to do this. He always enjoyed doing the CLG chant before games. 

One by one everyone put their hands on top of Yeu-jins' and soon enough he said, "For Vincent on three. one, two, three," and after three everyone shouted at the top of their lungs, "For Vincent." Almost as if someone was listening to them, after their chant they felt a spark coursing through their bodies. A spark that many before them have felt.

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To say FlyQuest was screwed would be an understatement. Without Jason, their main shot-caller and the fact that Fly knew barely any English was not helping. Flame and RapidStar could speak some English but still was utterly confused about the whole situation. They managed to translate what they did understand into Korean for their teammate, but it was hard when the teammates whose first language was English, didn't know what was going on either. They tried though, but without WildTurtle, their chance at winning seemed slim to none and they didn't even begin champ select. 

"I think if we go like this," AnDa said touching his face on the red barrier that is surrounding them, trapping the team in the starting circle. As he did so pictures of champions started to pop up on the barrier, "Then we can pick are champions," Andy finished. 

After a quick translation for Fly FlyQuest assembled their roster, which consisted of Cho'gath, Sejauni, Ryze, Ezreal, and Alistar. Then the headache came, and directly after that all too familiar voice came into their heads saying,  _Minions spawn in 30 seconds and remember there is no way out of this_. 

After everyone's head recovered they all jumped in surprise when they heard a low growl coming from next to them. When they looked up, to say they ran faster than they ever have is an understatement. It wasn't every day a giant boar popped up right next to you out of nowhere. When the screaming died down they realized something they didn't notice before, Andy was on top of the thing and he was... laughing. 

"Guys, you do realize I can control the thing, right? I mean all I have to do is think and BOOM I'm where I want to be. You should have seen your faces, I wish I was recording this," he laughed out, almost not being able to finish before his stomach hurting laughter started again.

"I'm sorry I was fearing for my life and decided to use the flight method because I don't think I would be able to fight the thing," Will exasperated, clearly still a little riled from when he first saw the giant beast. 

"Maybe Sejauni not best choice," sighed their coach, who had his hands on his knees and looked as if he saw a ghost. He could barely understand a word his two players said previously, but he could guess what the English meant, mostly anyway.

"You could say that again," Stunt muttered, his adrenaline still racing.

"Come on guys, let's win this for Jason," the boar riding jungler shouted before commanding the beast to run full speed into the rift. 

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"That was hilarious!" Eugene shouted as they watched all of FlyQuest run away from AnDa. Team Liquid were currently in a room with two screens, one for each team. It was a giant room with no furniture or wall decorations whatsoever. All the walls, as well as the floor, was painted pitch black, but there were bright fluorescent lights spanning across the ceiling so they could see. The room creeped Eugene out though, well it creeped everyone out, but Eugene especially. He was a naturally curious person, so he kept questioning what the room was used for before a sociopath decided to keep his hostages there. Those thoughts were not particularly all rainbows and unicorns. 

"Good thing we didn't pick Sejauni, or you guys would've done the same exact thing," Jake laughed, imagining his team running away from him, just like FlyQuest. He started laughing, even more, when he imagined Eugene complaining about how he almost pissed himself. He only stopped when he felt a soft hit against his arm. 

"Stop imagining it," the midlaner whined, reading the jungler's mind. 

"You don't know if I was doing that, maybe I remembered a joke a friend of mine told me last week," Jake argued, his love for annoying Euguene outweighed his truthfulness by a longshot. 

"Ya, sure. What were you thinking about?" Eugene said, looking up at Jake with his puppy eyes. 

Jake remained quiet for a second then replied, "You pissing yourself 'cause you were so scared."

This caused the smaller to try to hit Jake, but he easily dodged the hand. At this point, everyone was laughing about their little squabble, except Peter. He was staring intently at the screen displaying FlyQuest, looking at one spot imparticular; the nexus. His eyes never wavered, and soon his teammates realized what their ad carry was doing.

"Relax, Peter. Vincent will be fine. They'll win. You'll see him soon," Jake tried to reason with him, but Peter being himself, would have none of it.

"How could you say that? Can you magically look into the future? They didn't even make playoffs! And I'm stuck here! I can't do anything to help him! I'm useless!" Peter screamed. He and Vincent were close; they were best friends. The only person that ever came close to knowing him so well would be Zacqueri, but it still wasn't even close. Their duo may have broken up, but that didn't mean they weren't friends. Vincent was like a little brother to Peter, and not being able to do anything aggravated him to no end.

"You act like FlyQuest are the best team in the league, newsflash that's us. Anyway CLG is a good team, so you don't have to do anything. You can just sit down on the cold floor since the evil genius forgot to buy furniture, and watch Vincent wake up in no time," Jake calmly states, as he and the rest of the team moved closer to Peter. It wasn't like Jake was lying, everything that came out of his mouth made sense, but Peter was a pessimist when it came to real-life situations. In game, he knows he's the best adc in NA, and definitely up there in the world ranking, but when it came to everyday nonleague related activities, he had zero confidence. His pessimism may be about league at the moment, but it's not something he has control over. Peter can't do anything to help Vincent. He was stuck who knows where, while Vincent was somehow in a video game. Peter has the right to be pessimistic. 

He felt a hand on his shoulder, it was Jake. Nobody said anything, but Peter could feel his team silently supporting him. It had been a rough month for him to say the least, and his team was always there for him. None of them may be as close as him and Vincent, but they were still there for him. All of them supported him, all of them were ready to be what he needed, and Peter knew that.

His thoughts were interrupted by the announcer's voice saying, "First Blood." Peter's eyes immediately went back to the screen displaying CLG. Reignover had managed to gank bot and had easily taken down the Ezreal and forced the Brahm to flash. 

"See they are off to a good start," Eugene said optimistically. If there was one thing Peter hated it was Eugene's neverending optimism, but at that moment he would let it slide. Peter needed a little optimism in his life.

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"See I told you my Rakan was clean," Zikz commented after they got first blood. In all honesty, the only thing he did was miss his Q, but he didn't die. So he did the exact opposite of what Trevor had assumed would happen when they locked in Xayah and Rakan.

"Whatever you say, coach," Trevor replied sarcastically. He definitely did not see a missed Q, in fact, he thought Tony was doing better than Vincent. Trevor chuckled to himself, wondering how he could ever compare the two skill wise. Tony was a great coach, but Vincent was an amazing player.

Trevor was absent-mindedly collecting cs when he felt something hit his stomach than he realized he couldn't move. He was stunned, and it hurt. Then more pain came. Reignover was trying his best to make it down to bot lane, but he had based and went top. There was no getting out of this for him. Trevor could remember the electricity he felt wherever Ezreal managed to hit him, and it was not like that one time Darshan got him with the shock gum. 

"Tony run," is the last thing he remembered saying as he closed his eyes, unwilling to look at his killers. When he opened them again everything was black. His body felt sore, to say the least. He could move, but that wasn't the most pleasant feeling in the world. Instead of just waiting to respawn, Trevor decided to check his cooldowns and level on the silver bracelet Huhi told him how to use. He twisted his wrist three times then the holograph popped up. He was level 5, almost 6. When he looked at the bottom right of the holograph he saw that he had heal and flash up.

"Whoops, I guess I was too busy getting murdered to think about my summs," Trevor said, laughing to himself. He then looked at the bottom left and saw a grey picture of Xayah with a 5 on it. 

"Death timer, nice," he said before feeling a spark travel through him, then he saw the familiar starting circle. 

"Clean Rakan my ass," Trevor half-joked as he regained his bearings. At least his body didn't feel as weighed down as it did in what he later called the waiting room. 

All of CLG started asking him a thousand questions at once, which was not the most ideal situation for them since getting distracted was the main reason he died, but Trevor would definitely blame Tony for that. 

"Guys focus, I'll tell you about it after we win, or you can continue distracting yourselves and find out via a not so pleasant first-hand experience," Trevor cut in, silencing his teammates.

"Thank you," Tony said sincerely, which puzzled Trevor.  _Why would he say thank you_ _?_ thought the adc.

Tony continued, "I was going to jump into that fight and die. I don't know if you remember, but you told me to run. If you hadn't I would have inted and died too."

Trevor honestly did not know what to say after the heartfelt miniature monologue from his coach. So, he responded the only way he knew how to, with sarcasm. 

"Aww, so sweet. If you took my cs I won't tell you to run next time," the adc blurted out, which made his whole team laugh. "Hey, serious time, we can't risk losing," Trevor interjected, cutting off his teammates' laughter. 

"Yeah," Tony agreed, "Let's focus and win this thing." With that the coms turned strictly to shot-calling, well mainly shot calling, it's CLG, they can't go too long without making at least one joke. 

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"If we don't get baron we lose," Will sighed. Besides their one successful kill bot, they had only been on the receiving end. They were currently killing minions in their base, trying to figure out a plan. CLG were beating them at every aspect of the game, and Will felt like the game was unwinnable from the point they were at. He would never tell his team that though.

"Let's just go for it," Andy replied, feeling just as defeated as Will. He didn't know what to do. Jason was their main shot-caller, and it wasn't like anyone else was stepping up. 

"Go fast," Rapidstar added. Andy wasn't positive what he meant by that, but the jungler assumed he meant do the baron fast. That was definitely the plan. 

They made it to baron without seeing a single CLG member which was strange, but FlyQuest saw that as a blessing. They assumed it meant they based and were about to set up the baron. As they were about to finish off the baron they hear the announcer say, "An ally turret has been destroyed." That is when it clicked.

"They in base!" Flame shouted, getting ready to recall, but it was too late. All of FlyQuest knew that if they didn't rush baron then they would lose, apparently, it didn't matter. The announcer repeated, "An ally turret has been destroyed." When FlyQuest arrived at their broken base they saw CLG destroying the nexus. It only had a little health left, and before anyone could move from the starting circle, it shattered. They lost.

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When the nexus finally shattered all of CLG experienced a small panic when they saw Vincent fall out of it. Luckily, he fell towards Darshan who easily caught the small support. He set Vincent on the ground and the team surrounded them, waiting for Vincent to wake up. FlyQuest stayed in the starting circle, not wanting to ruin the moment.

"Hey, Vincent, you can wake up now we won," Trevor said, shaking the support. 

"I don't think it works like that," Darshan replied looking at the still unconscious Vincent. 

_He's right, it doesn't work like that_ , a voice appeared in their minds.  _I'll wake him up soon enough. For the losers, I'd recommend not doing what you just did, because this wasn't the most entertaining game in the world._  The voice paused, and soon FlyQuest disappeared.  _Now that the losers are gone it is time for you to join the other winners._

Darshan felt the spark he previously experienced when he was brought into the game, and soon enough was in a room with black walls and fluorescent lights. As he took a better look around he saw all of his teammates appear next to him, except one. Before he could ask about Vincent a voice came from behind him.

"Don't worry Vincent will show up soon, it took a little bit before Olleh showed up," the voice said, making all of CLG jump. When Darshan turned around he saw Jake and the rest of TL staring at him. His eyes wandered to Olleh, who he presumed was the one to be stuck sleeping. After a quick glance over him, the support seemed fine. Darshan's eyes than went to Peter, who had an unreadable look to him. It seemed almost as if Peter didn't know what to feel. Thinking about it, that made a lot of sense to Darshan. To put it simply: Peter was a complicated person. 

"Cool, so is there like a tour we can go on, since we are new around here, or..." Trevor joked, trying to lighten the mood. He hated the awkward silence that was filling the room. 

"Yeah," Eugene said, entertaining the adc's joke, "There's one wall, there's another, directly behind you is Biofrost, oh look there is one more wall to your right. Oops, almost forgot the TVs with the live stream on them."

As soon as Trevor heard Biofrost he turned around to see a very confused Canadian looking back at him. Trevor and the rest of the team ran over, engulfing the small player in a giant bear hug. 

"Guys, can't breathe," Vincent mumbled, trying to break free from his teammates. 

"Hey we're just happy to see you up and moving," Darshan defended his teammates. 

"I'm happy of that too," Vincent replied. He was about to ask what they were going to do next but caught a certain TL player staring at him. Peter didn't break eye contact with Vincent until they were in each other's arms. It wasn't like the hug with CLG which was out of pure joy, the hug with Peter was out of fear, and Vincent could tell. He could tell that Peter was scared for him, without either of them saying a word. That is how they were like, that is why their in-game synergy was so good; they were best friends outside of the game. 

"I don't know if you could tell, but someone was a little worried," Eugene said, making everyone giggle except Vincent who was blushing and Peter who was giving his teammate a death stare.

"Yes, I was worried for all the fangirls who would never get to hook up with Biodaddy," Peter shot back, making everyone laugh, except the support whose face was now bright red.

"Why are you like this?" questioned Vincent,  who finally started laughing with the rest of the team. He was okay, and everything would be fine. Vincent looked around, happy that his teammates won, but worried about the other players who might not be as lucky. Eugene's voice brought him out of his thoughts, as everyone made their way towards the two TVs. 

"That is going to be one hell of a game," the midlaner said, and Vincent was curious what he meant by that, but when he looked at the TV, Vincent knew. The next game was going to be hard on all of the players, but especially Bjerg. Vincent has known the TSM midlaner long enough to know that he was friends with most of the players on Cloud 9, especially Dennis. Vincent couldn't imagine the sadness Søren would feel when he finds out that the jungler was the life on the line. 

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As the two logos popped up on the screen Andy's smile dropped. He was so happy that Vincent's team won, but his team was playing next and against Cloud 9. Sure, he believed in his team, but they didn't make it out of quarterfinals. Neither did C9, but that still didn't mean he wasn't worried. 

"May the best team win," Jack sighed, extending his hand towards Andy. The C9 coach didn't want his team to play against the team owned by the guy sitting right next to him, in fact, he didn't want them to play for their lives at all. He just felt sorry for Dennis, since he had to play against his former team, if he was even awake. That made Jack wonder who from his team was asleep. He didn't want anyone from his team to be unconscious, but why would that change with his team? It didn't matter to Jack who it was on his team, because he cared about all of the boys. The team was like a second family to him, and he hated seeing any of them sad after a loss, let alone this. 

Andy clasped Jack's outstretched hand, and replied, "May the best team win."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that is another game down, and let me tell you the next one is going to be a doozy. I'm going to try to get that out as soon as I can, and hopefully, it won't take as long as this chapter did. It probably won't, because the next chapter is probably going to be my second favorite to write out of Bracket 1. My favorite, well, you'll see. ;)


	4. Bracket 1 Game 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya, I know this took a while, but writer's block and stuff. Btw this chapter will bring the feels.

_The winner of another one-sided game would be ClG my beauties, but I feel like this next one is going to be interesting. Any guesses? No, it is not Echo Fox and 100 Thieves, but good guess Juan. It is actually Cloud 9 vs the fan disappointers. Oops, I mean Team Solomid, my bad. Anyway, the game will commence soon, be ready, well it's not like it matters if you are ready or not, but you know what I mean,_ the voice finished.

"That one stung a bit," Kevin said trying to get rid of the awkward silence. His team had been silent whenever they weren't discussing strategy. He couldn't stand how all of his teammates looked so dead inside, especially Søren, because the great Bjergsen could not find a way out of the small room they were trapped in. They all were sitting on their individual beds, except Mithy who insisted on staying near Zven incase something happened. Kevin knew that nothing would, but there was no point in arguing with the support.

"I don't know if I can do this," the voice was quiet, but when Kevin finally realized who said that, he was shocked.

"What do you mean?" Mithy immediately said, looking at the midlaner.

Søren looked defeated, "I've known most of those guys for years, we are all friends, and then there is Dennis. I've been thinking, and since we are going to literally be in the game we probably have to hurt the other team. I don't know if I can do that to them."

Mithy looked angry for a split second but took a deep breath, relaxing his face, "If you don't play, we will lose. If we lose, Jesper won't wake up. Are you really saying that C9 is more important than Jesper?"

Søren let his head tilt back and hit the wall, "No, you know that's not what I meant. Err, I just-" before he could finish his thought the midlaner felt a spark in his stomach. He reached down, trying to figure out what it was, and why it was moving, but then his hands no longer existed, and soon none of him existed. When he finally was whole again he quickly recognized Summoner's Rift.

"Ugh, I don't feel so good,' Mike said, leaning on the closet wall near him. "I get motion sickness from a car, let alone this."

Kevin laughed, walking over to the 18-year-old and patted him on the back, "I still can't believe you get motion sickness."

"Believe it," Mike replied, regaining his ability to stand without using a wall for support.

"Trust- hey I look good in that picture," Kevin cut himself off after noticing his picture on the blue barrier.

"Is that a smudge or did I really have a pimple there?" Kevin questioned, walking over to the barrier to inspect the picture. When he finally touched the barrier, more pictures flooded the screen, sadly for Kevin, they were not of him but champions.

"Leave it to your giant ego to find out how we chose our champions," Mike laughed out.

"Hey! I feel like my ego is normal siz-"

"Can we please focus. Jesper's life is on the line. What are we picking?" Mithy interrupted, turning to their coach. After a short discussion, TSM chose: Camille top, Olaf jungle, Zoe mid, Ezreal adc, and Brahm support. Søren is quiet throughout the whole discussion, still worried if he could actually play against Cloud 9 or not. His team could easily recognize this.

Surprisingly when Mithy spoke to the midlaner, sympathy laced his voice, "I know you and Dennis are close, how about you just lane, and play defensively. If no one attacks you, you aren't aggressive. In team fights, you can put people to sleep, and not hurt the guys you are closest to, yeah?"

Søren thought about what the support had proposed for a few seconds before nodding his head, it was the least he could do. If he could somehow just get through this game without hurting any of his friends or being hurt would be the best case scenario, but he had a feeling it wouldn't be that easy.

_Minions spawn in 30 seconds and remember there is no way out of this._

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"So you all have brains?" Reapered asked his team, keeping the pregame tradition alive. It didn't matter that technically they weren't playing a game anymore, familiarity is something the whole team needed.

"I don't know after the headache and a half we just experienced if my brain is still functioning. Is anyone else hearing ticking?" Jensen questioned, opening his eyes for the first time. The red barrier that kept them in the circle was now gone, and minions were going to spawn soon. He looked around at his friends. Eric had the cutest little boomerang and skeleton hat that kind of reminded Jensen of a Pokemon that he couldn't remember the name to. Reapered's skin had a purple tint to it, and dagger-like appendages occupied where his hands should have been. Hopefully, his nose won't start to itch, or that would be a little painful. Andy had horns and was even more massive then he was to begin with. Dennis would have felt small compared to this Andy, which is saying something. Zach had a mask on, which Jensen didn't particularly like up close and personal, and was holding a gun that made him question if Zach even knew how to use one. They had definitely become their champions, at least slightly.

"I'm pretty sure that is just the fact that you're a robot, but I've miraculously grown horns, so I guess this is normal," Smoothie reassured the Dane. In all honesty, he had no idea what was going on, but the last thing he needed was any of his teammates to freak out and lose the game. It wouldn't be fair to Dennis if they lost, especially against his former team.

"How we get items?" Reapered asked, interrupting what would most likely be a sarcastic comment from Jensen. After a short scavenger hunt, Zach found a panel that just so happened to have a holograph shop in the controls. Jensen had no idea how he found it, but he did it.

As they slowly ventured out of their base the team they continued talking to each other, seeing if they could hear each other.

Licorice started by saying, "One," and the team went from top to bot in order and kept repeating the process until Repeared said, "tweenytoo," which made all of Cloud 9 laugh, and Reapered question his existence.

"I think we can hear each other talk via magic," Zach concluded.

"I second that," laughed Jensen.

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"This is like a trainwreck. I don't want to look, but I can't take my eyes off it," Peter said, watching as C9 set up a gank mid. The coms were playing, so he knew that Søren would be caught totally off-guard. He hated seeing his friends trying to kill each other. Peter was lucky that he wasn't necessarily close with any of the Optic guys. He still felt bad for killing a few of them, but when push came to shove he had to.

"I know, but the difference is that you don't know anyone on the train," Vincent shot back. He hated watching this and wished he could just refuse to watch, but he assumed that only hearing the coms would be worse.

The Canadian watched in horror as Reapered snuck forward, invisible to Søren. He then heard the one thing he was looking forward to the least, the screaming. Shockingly, Søren didn't scream as much as he expected. He did scream, the shortness of duration was most likely the result of how squishy Zoe could be. Vincent looked up to see everyone look away from the screen, almost as if they were all paying their respects for the midlaner, only he was going to respawn in a few seconds.

"Been there... wasn't fun," Trevor said trying to lighten the mood as per usual.

"Same," Eugene agreed. It would be the two of them to try to make the others laugh.

Vincent looked back up at the screen to see a replay of Søren's death. Against every logical thought he had, Vincent kept his eyes on the screen, more particularly on Søren. After watching the replay Vincent knew that it wasn't going to be an easy game for TSM. He knew that it would practically be a 4 vs 5 because Søren didn't even try to fight back. He didn't try to hurt anyone on Cloud 9. Vincent knew that it would be hard on Søren, but he never thought that the midlaner wouldn't even protect himself. By the look on Peter's face, he knew as well. He knew that Søren was refusing to play because of Dennis.

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"Do we really have to kill him again? This seems excessive," Jensen asked, killing Søren over and over again was not something he enjoyed, especially when he knew that the only reason he was able to kill the midlaner was that he refused to fight back. Jensen would prefer for Søren to fight back, to at least give him a reason to keep killing him. Søren never did though. He refused, and every time Jensen felt worse. The two had known each other for so long, they were friends. This just proved how much of a better person Søren was compared to Jensen.

"Kill him, than baron," Reapered replied plainly. He was anxious, to say the least. Rushing the baron seemed like an easy choice, especially since they were so far ahead. All of Cloud 9 went towards the midlane, ready to kill Søren once again, and they did exactly that. His death was thankfully quick, Zach ended up getting the finishing blow. Jensen cringed when he saw the defeat on Søren's face when he saw them all in his lane.

They moved towards baron and started it with little to no contest. When there was only about a quarter health left on the baron, TSM showed up. They didn't start a fight, they were just their, tempting them to stop the baron. C9 were still hitting the baron, but right before Reapered could smite the baron, Mike flashed into the back of the pit.

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"Yes, Mike I love you!" Mithy shouted as he stole the baron away from the unexperienced Reapered. The game was close, and stressful to say the least. It didn't help that Søren wasn't helping at all; the most he did was zone out C9 or put Sneaky asleep once. After that, all he did was int, or refuse to protect himself against Jensen, who seemed more than willing to kill the midlaner over and over again.

"I'm dead here," was the only thing he could get out before the coms went silent. Mithy hated having to listen to his teammates die because he knew how it felt. The only ones who hadn't died were Kevin and Ssong since Mike just died.

"Back than push mid after Mike respawns," Mithy told his team, except Søren who had just respawned. They already had all the outer turrets down, so going mid made the most sense. As they back Alfonoso starts to have hope that they will win the game. He starts to believe that Jesper will be okay, and he hopes that he is.

"I definitely get what you mean when you say that it is just black, but not really pitch black," a now resurrected jungle commented after the guys got their items.

"Yeah, it's hard to explain," replied Søren which was surprising since he hasn't talked throughout most of the game. He just didn't know what to do, because he liked Jesper, but Dennis was the one at risk for C9. If it was one of the other guys he would have fought back more, but it wasn't. Dennis was the one who could end up unconscious permanently. It was hard to choose between his current team and guys that were his friends for years. It wasn't an easy decision for him, and he could tell that every time he died his teammates were getting more and more angry at him, especially Mithy.

Soon enough the team was running it down mid, and Søren knew a team fight was coming, and it would decide the game, since the inhibitor turret was already at half health, and the minion waves were pushing in their favor. He knew what they would ask him to do, and he didn't know if he could do it.

Mithy, of course, was the one to ask, "Søren can you fight here?"

The midlaner didn't answer, he just got sucked into his own mind debating what his answer should be. He tried to be rational, and reason that C9 was a good team, and could win against lower standing teams, but the thought of them being the ultimate loser because of bo1s made him hesitant to say his answer even more. When he looked up all of his teammates were staring at him, it made sense since what they did next would determine how they would approach the next 30 seconds, but before he could decide Cloud 9 made a surprise engage. Mithy managed to flash out with about half of his health, but they were still in danger of being ambushed again.

It wasn't until Alfonso got mad enough to the point where he screamed, "Do you not care about Jesper whatsoever? If it was you in his position he would be working his ass off to try to win and not just fucking int everywhere he went! I swear if my fucking boyfriend doesn't wake up because of you I will personally ensure that you won't be having a good time," that Søren finally realized that Jesper was his friend and the midlaner was being a little selfish not helping his team before. All it took was Mithy showing why he got banned for Søren to realize what an idiot he was being.

Before Søren could say that he would fight, Kevin pointed out something that went right over his head, "Boyfriend?" Søren was a little shocked; he knew that the two were close, but he never saw anything that would signify that they were more than friends.

Mithy messed up, to say the least. He just outed Jesper and himself to his whole team in the middle of a game that Jesper's life depended on. The timing could have been a little bit better, well it could have been a lot a bit better, but he couldn't reverse time, so he had to work with what he got. "Let's just focus on the game," the support said, lucky for him his team was feeling generous and didn't challenge him. It was just in time too, because Alistar was charging at them.

Søren doesn't even remember what happened during the fight, the only thing he remembers is hearing "Pentakill" and having the logo on top of his head. His teammates were cheering for him, and making a mess of the coms saying to end the game, but all Søren could think about was the pain on the faces of his dead friends. He killed them; he caused them that pain, but more importantly, they were about to lose. They would have to go through more games. Dennis would have to wait to wake up if he ever did. If Dennis never woke up it would be all on him, because he knew that TSM could win another game. He didn't know about C9.

Søren's body was on autopilot, just hitting turrets and inhibitors until he moved onto the Nexus. His teammates recognized this almost immediately but knew from experience that letting Søren cope by himself was the only way he ever did cope, especially over a decision or play he made.

"Thank you," Mithy said as the team continued hitting on the last thing that stood between him and Jesper. Søren didn't get the chance to reply since everyone was caught off guard with the fact that when the Nexus broke Jesper fell out of it. Almost like how it is in movies his boyfriend manages to catch him, and slowly lower him to the ground.

"Why isn't he awake?" Mithy asked, panic and anger lacing his voice. "We won, we did what he wanted, why the fuck isn't he awake?"

"Relax, he'll wake up," Kevin replied, being the only capable one of doing so since Mike wasn't exactly the best with words, Ssong's English still wasn't exactly up to par, and Søren was still trapped in his own mind thinking about God knows what. All of those factors combined ironically made Kevin a somewhat sensible person.

"Yes, because we are supposed to believe the word of our fucking kidnapper that can do magic? Sure, why not? You do realize that kidnappers are not trustworthy people. So, do not try to 'relax' me since you have no idea what you are talking about. I mean really we are guinea pigs to this guy, just waiting to see what new spell he can test on us next. I can't wait to finally see the damn guy so I can-" Mithy's rant was cut off by an all too familiar laugh.

_I just wanted to inform you that I was going to wake up your not so little boy toy, but now that you have questioned my honor I think I am going to follow your assumption and test out a new trick I learned on your boyfriend. Just know, everything that he is about to go through is your fault_ , the voice left and Mithy looked utterly wrecked. He was the reason why Jesper would experience something he couldn't even imagine.

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Jesper had estimated he had been chained for a few hours, which was difficult since a minute felt like a lifetime. He tried to count out the seconds, but that got boring very fast. His mind kept wandering to Alfonso, because knowing his boyfriend, Jesper knew he would be on a verge of a mental breakdown. Alfonso was always the one to worry about Jesper's well being since he was older, even though it was only by two years. Mother Alfonso only came out when Jesper was sick or feeling sad, and the marksman was glad, since being micromanaged every second of the day wasn't the best situation to be in, but Jesper did enjoy the long cuddle sessions. He laughed imagining his boyfriend trying to micromanage all of their team's in-game decisions. They were definitely going to get very annoyed very fast. It wasn't his fault he has a hot overprotective Spanish boyfriend who has a temper.

Just as Jesper was imagining the very funny arguments Mithy could start over any small little mistake, he thought he was going insane when he heard his voice. Jesper brushed it off as just having an active imagination and went back to imagining Alfonso yelling at Kevin for being a little too self-absorbed, which was highly plausible. He then heard him again. Jesper couldn't make out what Alfonso was saying, but one thing was for certain, it was definitely him.

When the Dane opened his eyes he saw him. Alfonso looked absolutely wrecked; his glasses were cracked, his hair was a mess, and his clothes had tears all throughout them, and not the fashionable kind. He looked exhausted, and all Jesper wanted to do was run to his boyfriend, but the chains around his wrists and ankles prevented that.

"Alfonso," Jesper called out, desperate to try to break his chains, pulling relentlessly on them, but to no avail.

"I'm sorry," he replied, "This is all my fault. Everything was my fault."

"Fonso don't be an idiot. Just come here, and we can try to figure this all out. We can try to figure out how to get out of here, no?" Jesper replied confused as to what was going on. All he knew was that he wanted Alfonso to be in his arms, or vice versa.

"I can't do it," the support replied plainly. He was about ten feet away from Jesper when he started to move to the floor.

"Hey, yes you can. I don't know what the fuck is going on, but I know that you can do anything you put your mind to," Jesper replied, trying to encourage his boyfriend to keep moving. As Alfonso turned towards him Jesper noticed the red seeping from Alfonso's skin. He was wearing all black, so it wasn't as noticeable as it would have been if he was wearing literally any other color.

"Don't give up, you are stronger than this Fonso, you and I both know you are. I have no idea what is going on, but I know that you are the strongest person I know," Jesper tried but failed to encourage his boyfriend to keep moving towards him. Alfonso moved to his back, which made it very clear to see that his chest was moving up and down less and less. Jesper tried to call out encouraging phrases to Alfonso while pulling at his chains the best he could, trying to break free of them. As the more time past the harder it was to see Alfonso's chest moving, and eventually, it stopped. Jesper fell to his knees, not knowing how to react. He didn't know what had just happened, besides the fact that he just saw his boyfriend die, and he was helpless. Jesper continued pulling on the chains half-heartedly as tears streamed down his face. He didn't know what to think, or how to function.

_Not the best first try, but you have nine more, so you best better use those tries to the fullest, because well, if not that_ , the voice said, making Jesper's head turn to Mithy's dead body,  _will become a little more permanent_. Jesper immediately perked up; he didn't exactly know what he had to do, but he would do anything for Alfonso.

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"Why didn't I get a text yet?" Andy questioned, starting to get a little worried for his team. He didn't exactly know what was going on, but he knew that both Steve and Devin(who he texted after CLG won to make sure Vincent was okay) got a picture within five minutes, showing that everyone was awake. It had just past ten, and to say Andy was starting to feel uneasy was an understatement.

Nobody responded because none of the other three owners had a clue to what was going on. All they could do was watch the live stream, that was available to everyone with an internet connection, and wonder what the hell their players were talking about since they didn't have any com sounds whatsoever. All they could hear was regular game sounds, so their players couldn't even try to communicate with the outside world. Andy turned to his right to see Jack with his head in his hands, and for once Andy was feeling sorry that TSM beat C9. Cloud 9 had been winning most of the game, mainly because they kept killing Søren who he could only assume had refused to fight back until the last moment possible, but that was Søren. He was a little too nice in Andy's opinion, but that was just his personality.

Andy's phone then made the weird sounding beep, just like when Steve got a picture of his team awake and well, but that is not what was on Andy's phone. When he looked at his messages a cryptic text read:  _maybe because they deserve to be played with_. When Andy read the message, he froze. He didn't know what to think. When the other owners saw the message, they immediately started to come up with theories as to what could have happened. The theories were not helping Andy's anxiety whatsoever.

"You know what I want to know?" questioned Steve. "How is it that we are banking all of our comfort on a text that is coming from an anonymous number that somehow knows what we are thinking?"

"Because we will believe any shred of evidence that shows our boys are safe," replied a defeated voice. It was Jack. None of the owners could argue with that point. It was true; the pictures and texts meant that there was hope for their players, and they would take all of the hope they could get.

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He failed. Alfonso was so close to him, yet so far. That was his last shot and he blew it. Jesper, for once, wished that he was taller, so he could reach the extra foot, so he could complete his goal, but he couldn't. Jesper couldn't touch Alfonso, which meant he had failed him. He had killed his boyfriend. He had watched his boyfriend die time after time, and that was the tenth. Alfonso was dead. As he watched Alfonso's chest stop rising, Jesper let the sobs that he had been holding off for far too long surface. He curled up in a ball, the closest he could be to Alfonso and just wept.

_I guess you were keeping track of what try you were on_ , the voice came, almost sounding sympathetic.

Jesper answered with his very audible sobs as he continued to try to make himself as small as possible. All he wanted to do was disappear. All he wanted to do was join Alfonso wherever he was.

_Now don't get all suicidal on me now_ , the voice countered Jesper's thoughts.

"Please," Jesper spoke out weakly, "I love him," that was the first time he said it out loud, and he meant every word. Jesper just regretted not saying it earlier. That was a decision that would haunt him the rest of his life.

_I think it is time to wake up_ , the voice replied, nonchalantly.

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"What the fuck do you mean don't worry? This is all my fault. If I wasn't toxic for once in my fucking life this wouldn't be happening! He is fucking crying! He never cries! What a great bo-umm friend am I?" Mithy shot back at Kevin, who made the mistake of saying 'don't worry.'

"I know this is kind of not the best time, but we kind of were able to hear your coms, so we know that he's your boyfriend," Trevor said quietly, not wanting to be the next recipient of Alfonso's anger.

"Great, now the whole world knows we're dating! Does anyone else want to add any more wonderful news to the conversation?" Mithy questioned sarcastically. He was a mess. It didn't help that he could see tears streaming down his boyfriend's face. All he could think was that everything was his fault. Mithy wished he hadn't been so toxic, but then again he got banned for a reason.

An audible whimper came from Jesper, and Alfonso immediately turned towards his boyfriend. They were both on the floor, which wasn't the most comfortable, but he wasn't necessarily complaining. Jesper's tears seemed to increase, and his heartbeat got faster. Alfonso grabbed his boyfriend's hand trying to see if it gave him any sort of comfort, but it didn't. Everyone watched at a distance as Alfonso tried to comfort the unresponsive Dane.

What happened next, shocked him. In between the sobs, Jesper whimpered, "Please I love him." This made Alfonso's heart skip a beat, as well as drop. He didn't know what to think, and it also didn't help that Jesper started to squeeze the hand Mithy was holding. When Alfonso finally saw Jesper's blue eyes he immediately relaxed; Jesper on the other hand tensed.

"I thought I killed you," was not what Alfonso had expected for his boyfriend to say, actually far from it, but he didn't care.

"I'm sorry, this was all my fault," Alfonso apologized, which made Jesper tense even more.

"Please, never say that again," Jesper spoke seriously, the words haunting him as they were repeated every time a new Alfonso appeared to die in front of Jesper all over again.

Alfonso could see his boyfriend shaking; he had never seen Jesper this shaken before. It caused him so much pain knowing that this was all his fault. He was about to apologize again but remembered what Jesper said, instead Alfonso pulled him into a hug and replied, "I'm here. I'm okay. You're here. You're okay. Everything will be alright."

They stayed like that for awhile, Jesper in Alfonso's arms, afraid that if he let go the love of his life would turn to ash. That's when Jesper remembered the one thing he regretted the most when he thought Alfonso was truly gone, "I love you."

Alfonso pulled away and rested his forehead on Jespers', "I love you too," Alfonso smiled, leaning in and planting a sweet kiss on Jesper's lips.

"I feel like it would be wrong to say PDA, but it is so tempting," Eugene whispered to Trevor, but the room was silent, so everyone heard him.

Jesper ended up breaking the kiss, giggling at what Eugene said. Jesper buried his head in Alfonso's neck and then something dawned on him, "Thanks for outing us to everyone."

Alfonso shook his head, "It's your fault. You said that you loved me. How was I not supposed to kiss you?"

Kevin, being himself once again, interrupted their conversation, "Well technically he outed you guys while we were playing."

"Who triggered you?" Jesper asked, knowing his boyfriend too well. Alfonso didn't answer but instead decided to bury his face into the crook of Jesper's neck to hide his blush.

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When Andy heard the beep, he couldn't guess if it was going to be good or bad news. To Andy's dismay, it was both. When he looked down he saw a picture of Jesper and Alfonso...kissing. Well, the good news was that they were okay, but the bad news was that he lost his bet with Søren. Apparently, the midlaner's gaydar was much more accurate than Andys'.

"Why are you frowning," Steve asked, looking over his shoulder to see the picture.

"Oh...you really should stop making bets with Søren," he laughed out, shaking his head.

Andy shook his head, his eyes glancing towards the t.v. As soon as he saw the teams he knew that the next game would be difficult. The semifinals match was close to begin with, let alone having a player's life on the line. 100 Thieves vs Clutch would be a hard game, but Andy's mind went to Jack. He could see the devastation on his face as he stared blankly at the television. Jack cared so much about his players, they all did, but Jack truly loved his boys. Andy looked back at the picture on his phone, this was definitely going to make living in a team house interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! first gay thing in this book(there may or may not be more;) R.I.P. C9/Jack 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed<3


	5. Bracket 1 Game 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a month... whoops. Anyway thanks to whoever is still putting up with me and my bad upload schedule. Also what the hell happened to the LCS? I blink and there is another roster change. RIP 100T Meteos, C9 Smoothie, and the majority of Echo Fox

_Thanks to the inability for Cloud 9 to close a game, TSM one the last game in quite an INTeresting fashion, if you know what I mean. Now I know, I know, you poor souls who have been waiting so long want to know who is playing next, well this one is going to be an exciting rematch. 100 Thieves and Clutch Gaming, you guys better be prepared, hopefully, this won't be as long as the last time you two played_ , the voice chirped out. He seemed much too chipper to have kidnapped 60 people in Cody's opinion. It wasn't like he was judging the dude, but still. He expected their kidnapper with magical powers to be a bit more dark and a little less nerdy.

"I second that last statement," Zaq commented, trying to make the most out of their current situation. He didn't like the thought of playing against any team for so much on the line, but it wasn't like he had a choice. Zaq was just glad that CLG managed to pick up a win. He may have left the team, but he didn't take some of his best friends with him. Sadly, Will wasn't as lucky. Zaq looked at him the moment he heard C9 lost, and he didn't necessarily look good. They were kidnapped, but his face just seemed to drop even more after he heard TSM won. The support wanted to comfort Will, but their main focus was the game ahead of them and waking up Ssumday. They could worry about their other friends later.

"I think we all second that statement," their coach agreed. Neil wasn't too keen on playing top, especially with one of his player's lives on the line. He was an ex-pro midlaner, but that didn't mean he was good, or could even play top. Sure, he knew what he should do in situations, but that didn't mean he could do what he needed to. Neil didn't know what they were going to do since they were going to be literally in the game. The next hour of his life would definitely be interesting, maybe in more ways than one. He just hoped that he wouldn't disappoint his team since they did get second in playoffs. Neil knew deep down, if they lost, it would be his fault.

"But another 90-minute game is something I have on my bucket list, especially if we get to be actually in the game," Will joked, hiding his emotions with humor. That's what he did best, be the funny one and make everyone feel better. That was his role in the team, put everyone else's feelings in front of his own. He wasn't allowed to be sad that his best friend lost his last game and might never wake up again. Will didn't have time to worry about Zach, or anyone else, he had to focus on the present, and in the present, he felt weird. Will looked around to see his teammates with odd expressions on their faces, but then he saw Cody pick up his arms to reveal that he had no hands. Will didn't know whether to scream or what, but he didn't have the time. Will already disappeared, and then reappeared in Summoner's Rift.

"What the fuck was that?" Cody questioned, as soon as he could formulate words.

"A similar experience I had to the first time I took LSD," Will laughed out. His laugh was contagious and soon he had his whole team laughing.

"Why am I not surprised you've taken LSD before?" Zaq remarked sarcastically. This comment just made everyone laugh more.

"Because you took it with me," that got the biggest reaction, resulting in Cody almost falling over out of laughter.

"Okay," Pr0lly laughed, "As much as I would love to hear the end of this conversation, we have a job to do. So, what are we doing now?" the coach questioned, honestly confused as to what they were supposed to do now.

"I don't know,  _coach_ , what are we suppose to do?" Will asked, putting emphasis on the word coach.

"I may be your coach, but I don't know how the hell we pick champions from inside the game," Neil shot back, "Anyone have any ideas?"

"What about pictures," suggested Ryu, who had been mostly silent due to the language barrier.

"What pictures?" Pr0lly questioned, then followed the midlaner's finger towards the red barrier where he did indeed see pictures of himself and every one of his players, well except the sleeping toplaner.

"Ooo, I wanna press mine first," Will said, making his voice high pitched and running towards his picture. When he did press the picture, jungle champions flooded the screen. "You guys are lucky you have me, you would have never realized that the pictures were the key without me."

"Oh, I have a feeling we would have somehow gotten by without you," Neil retorted.

"Yeah, sure. Can I have Zac?" questioned Will, trying to get somewhat back on track.

"But he's my support," Cody whined.

"Come on guys, I don't belong to anyone. I am a strong, independent-" before Zaq could finish he was interrupted by his coach.

"No wonder why we barely get anything done in practice."

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_Minions spawn in 30 seconds and remember there is no way out of this._

"That wasn't creepy at all," Colin said, rubbing his head. Between getting a massive headache and what their lovely kidnapper just said, he was done with the whole kidnapping thing. Out of all of his teammates, Colin was the one to think that they were going to be rescued, that someone would find them, but no. Why would the police be able to find someone who uses magic? Since magic now exists.

"Nope, not one bit," Apollo sarcastically agreed. That was one of the only things they had at this point, their humor. They didn't even have Fabian, who was arguably the funniest out of everyone(mostly because of the accent). Apollo was optimistic, but also realistic, and realistically he had no idea what is to come. All he was sure about is that they had to win to make sure Fabian would be awake and well, then they could figure out everything else later.

"Guys we buy our items over here," David cut in, gesturing to a panel that made a holographic store. Of course, it was their coach to figure out what they actually needed, Clutch as a whole weren't always the best at figuring out what to do in the present.

After the team bought items they slowly made their way out of the base, not really knowing what to expect. None of them wanted to be caught in a trap and give over first blood, especially since they had no idea what dying intended. The only thing they had were their assumptions, and even then, nobody wanted to test dying out.

As Apollo reached the bot turret he realized something, "How do we level up our abilities?" he aimed the question at Nick since there was no one else around them, but the support was not the one to reply.

"No idea," plainly stated their toplaner, who spoke without really thinking.

"Umm, Colin, how the hell can I hear you?" replied Apollo, who looked at Nick as if he had the answer, but only got a shrug as an answer.

"I think we have coms or something like that, but I can hear you guys like you are right next to me," replied their coach.

"LirA, you hear us?" asked Nick, making sure the Korean wasn't left out of the conversation.

He got a simple, "yeah," back as a reply, but it still didn't answer his lane partner's original question. The support looked around, trying to imagine leveling his Morgana binding mentally, but that didn't seem to do anything. He then noticed a silver bracelet on his wrist. Nick tried to swipe at it, and see if there were any buttons, but there weren't any.

"Guys, I think we can unlock our abilities using the silver bracelets on our wrists, but I have no idea how they work," Nick decided to share the information with the rest of his team since it didn't seem like he was getting anywhere alone.

After about 10 seconds of silence, Colin yelled, "I figured it out!"

"Care to share?" questioned their coach.

"Oh, yeah. All you have to do is twist your wrist inward three times, like your revving an engine on a motorcycle," and like magic, a holograph appeared in front of Nick that resembled what would be the bottom of his computer screen. The support quickly leveled up his Q, and then realized something.

"Wait, how the hell did you figure this out, out of everyone?" the support questioned.

"Are you saying I'm not smart?" Colin questioned back, allowing for the joke to continue.

"I mean you did argue with us for a solid 10 minutes about how Ireland could be classified as a continent," Apollo joined into the fun which was making fun of Colin.

"Okay, 1. I was running on a minimal amount of sleep when that happened and 2. I saw Pr0lly doing it, so I just copied him," Colin argued back.

"I knew you couldn't have been able to figure it out before us," Nick sighed in relief, he no longer had to question his existence because Colin figured something out he couldn't.

"Hey, none of you wise asses had the intelligence to look at what 100 Thieves were doing, so in turn, I am smart," Colin retorted.

"Whatever you say Mr. Ireland is a continent."

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"Do you have any idea whats going on right now, because usually, this is the part when Neil tells me what's going on?" Matt asked, and to say he was on the verge of having a panic attack would be an understatement. As soon as he saw all the twitter posts he knew something was wrong, and he had no idea what to do except click the link that allowed him to watch the live stream. Matt didn't know what to think at this point, his team, his friends were kidnapped and magically inserted into a video game. This was definitely more stressful than when In N' Out screwed up the team's order.

"Man, you act like I understand the game. All I know is that your team finished second, and second is pretty good," Hector replied with a hint of sadness in his voice. He wanted to support Matt, who was like a son to him, but the Optic team wasn't on the same level as 100T. They didn't even make playoffs, and Hector was seriously worried that they were going to lose the whole thing. He didn't have the heart to watch their game since he wasn't awake for it. He very well knew the result as soon as he looked at the notifications on his phone. Hector didn't know what was worse: watching his team lose, or having such a fucked up sleep schedule that he couldn't even go through the emotional roller coaster with his team.

"Your right, but don't worry about Optic, they won't lose. I have a hunch, and you know not to challenge my hunches," Matt replied, trying to cheer his friend up, even through Skype, he could tell the Hector was more nervous than him. He didn't even know why he was so worried, well he did, but he trusted his team. They were going to win.

"You and your hunches," Hector replied, shaking his head.

"Hey, you're the one who made me, remember that," laughed out Matt.

"I will remember and regret that for the rest of my life."

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He did not want this to happen, quite frankly, this was the opposite of what he wanted. He wanted a quick, bloody game, but instead, it is almost the exact same as it was back at the beginning of April. All he wanted to do was make an interesting matchup, and now they were 50 minutes into the game and Clutch's baron just ran out after they barely accomplished anything. This game was almost an exact repeat of their game 5 in the semifinals, and he was not happy. He was quite bored actually, and that gave him an idea.

The cloaked man smirked to himself as he devised a plan. The plan was very simple: get some entertainment.  _They are not going to know what's about to hit them_ , he thought to himself. He looked at the screen displaying the game to make sure nothing entertaining happened, and nothing did. The two teams were once again stuck in a baron dance.  _Let the games begin._

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"Is anyone else experiencing déjà vu?" Eugene asked, getting a little tired of watching the game. He had seen it all before, well most of it, he may or may not have paused the game to watch Netflix, then fast forwarded it to the exciting parts. In all fairness, he just had his own semifinal game the previous day.

"Déjà vu?" Questioned Jae, surprised that Eugene knew the French phrase.

"Yeah, it means something like: I experienced this before," Eugene explained, thinking that he didn't know what it meant.

"You're an idiot," Trevor laughed out, even he knew that déjà vu was French.

"Why am I an idiot, all I did was explain to him what it meant," Euge questioned, confused as to what was going on.

"Déjà vu is French," Jae clarified, holding back laughter.

"Exactly, so I just wanted to- oh, I see why you are calling me an idiot now," Eugene admitted shyly, tilting his head down and scratching the back of his neck. This caused everyone in the room to burst into laughter.

Jesper and Alfonso were no different, chuckling at the scene that played out in front of them. They were sitting on the ground leaning on each other and holding hands, not caring about being affectionate out in the open. They were out now, so they might as well take advantage of it while they could. The couple had no idea what they were going to do next, especially if the whole world knew they were dating, but they had each other and a two-year contract with TSM, so that gave them a little security.

Jesper cuddled deeper into Alfonso's neck, just happy that he had the ability to do that. He closed his eyes, taking in the feeling of his boyfriend, and every small detail he could. The small prickle he felt from Alfonso's scruff, the way he loved drawing small circles with his thumb whenever they held hands, and the heat radiating off of him as if he had a piece of the sun in his soul. All of those small, insignificant details are what made Jesper love his boyfriend so much.

The Dane opened his eyes and looked up to see Alfonso staring back at him. They both smiled at each other and leaned in for a quick kiss, hoping that nobody was paying attention to them. When Jesper looked to see if anyone did spot their quick kiss, he was happy to see that all the attention was on Eugene who seemed to have said something even more ridiculous than the whole déjà vu thing. As Jesper's eyes glanced over the small crowd of players, he saw him. His eyes widened and his mouth went dry when he spotted the black cloak in the midst of the players. He wanted to scream, to warn them, but as soon as Jesper tried he had no voice. 

Alfonso quickly noticed the change in demeanor and looked at his boyfriend questioningly. Jesper tried to make Alfonso understand what was happening, but he couldn't. Alfonso looked confused, even after Jesper pointed directly at the man in the hood.  _They can't see me. Only you know I'm here, and even then you can't warn them. You have no voice._  Jesper's eyes widened at this. He could do nothing. The only thing he could think of doing is trying to play charades with Alfonso, but by the time it would take for Alfonso to understand him would be too long. Instead, he grabbed Alfonso and pulled him up. Jesper guided his boyfriend to the farthest point possible away from the cloaked man. 

"Jesper, what are you doing?" questioned Alfonso. Jesper tried to respond, but he still couldn't talk. All he could do was watch as the cloaked man weaved in an out of players, and started to walk towards them. Jesper stepped between him and Alfonso, but they were trapped in a corner. Alfonso kept asking what he was doing, but he never got a response. The figure moved closer, and than stopped a foot away from Jesper. At this point, all the other players were looking at Jesper and asking what he was doing and moving towards where he was.  _You lost, remember? You failed. I plan on keeping my word._  Jesper was at a loss for words, literally. He planted his feet down and got ready to put up a fight because he would not give up the love of his life easily. Sadly, there was one factor Jesper didn't calculate into his plan; the man could use magic. With the wave of a gloved hand, Jesper was sent flying across the room, leaving nothing between Alfonso and the cloaked man. 

"What the fuck was that?" yelled Alfonso as he was trying to move towards where Jesper landed, but he didn't get very far. He was stopped in his tracks by the man, who now had a knife in his hand. Jesper didn't have to see his face to know the man under the cloak was smirking. Jesper tried to get up in time, but it was too late. The knife was already plunged into Alfonso's chest, most likely his heart. Jesper ran towards him, but it didn't matter; he was already dead. All of the other players surrounded him as he held his boyfriend's dead body. Jesper cradled Alfonso in his arms, crying his heart out. This time Alfonso was truly gone.

_Now that is what I like to call entertaining._

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"Guys the minion waves are crashing, and they have no tp. As soon as we see someone bot, we engage," Zaq calmly stated through the coms. He didn't want to even think about how long they have been playing, but he had a feeling this was it. They were practically full build, and all they had to do was wait. When they saw Ornn in the bot lane he quickly called, "Go," and that they did. 

In no time at all Zaq got his Braum ult off to start the fight, all he could do after that was do what he always did; protect Cody and give his life for the cause. The fact that he couldn't see how the rest of the fight went bothered him the most. He didn't care about the whole dying thing, even though it didn't feel the greatest, he just wanted to know what was happening inside the game. The support quickly checked his death time to see how long he had left, and sadly it was so late in the game he still had to wait a minute. A lot could happen in a minute. They could win the game. They could lose the game. Zaq hated waiting. It was killing him, metaphorically of course. 

Zaq watched as the numbers on his death timer slowly got down to 10 seconds, but that is when he felt a familiar pull in his gut. Zaq didn't know what to think, but one thing was for certain, someone won. 

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Jesper had tears running down his face, and all that could come out of Alfonso's mouth was, "Not again." He was just enjoying a nice cuddle session with his boyfriend when he realized that Jesper had fallen asleep. At first, the support let him sleep, but as soon as he tried to wake the Dane up, he couldn't. When Alfonso realized that Jesper was not going to wake up his heart broke because it was all his fault. The only positive he could think of was that Jesper was not crying, but apparently, he thought too soon. 

At this point, most of the players stopped paying attention to the live stream and focused on Alfonso. Everyone kept their distance, not too sure of what to do or say. Eventually, Søren walked over to Alfonso and sat down next to him. After a few seconds of awkward silence the midlaner spoke up, "He'll be okay. The last time this happened he woke up. Jesper will wake up."

"But what if this time he doesn't? I don't even know what caused him to be like this, well besides me being toxic. If he doesn't wake up, it's going to be all my fault," Alfonso was on the verge of tears. Søren saw this and wrapped a comforting arm around him. That was all he could do. 

Alfonso then saw Jesper's eyes scrunch then slowly open, and he couldn't help but start smothering his boyfriend in a hug. He had no idea what was happening, but all that mattered was that Jesper was awake that very moment. After a few seconds Alfonso pulled away, but when the realization the Alfonso was not dead hit Jesper, they were embracing once again. 

"You died again," Jesper croaked out, his throat sore from crying, but all that mattered was that Alfonso was alive and in his arms. He was overwhelmed, to say the least. 

"You were unconscious again," Alfonso countered, but really he knew that whatever Jesper went through was probably ten times worse than whatever he was feeling. 

"What the fuck is going on," questioned a voice from behind the couple. That caused everyone to turn around and notice the new team in the room. 

"Long story, but congrats on winning," Trevor smiled, giving his former support a hug. 

"If we won, then wher-" Zaq was cut off by Darshan this time.

"Turn around," and as 100 Thieves did so they say their toplaner alive and well. 

They all started to hug Ssumday, and welcome him back to the world of the awake. That is when Zaq finally realized they won. He didn't know how his team did it, but at that point, he didn't care. He was just glad that they didn't have to go through all of that again.

"Do you want to hear that long story? We have all time in the world." 

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"They won!" Matt sighed in relief. He was so happy for his team, and already could feel himself start relaxing. "They had to do it in such dramatic fashion," Matt laughed to himself. It was true, his team always had to torture him with the fact that their games were always so long, but a win was a win. 

"They must take after you, always making me sweat before you decided you were tired of playing and felt like winning," Hector replied, recalling a few moments when Matt did just that on Optic. It was bittersweet seeing Matt like this, on one hand, he was happy that his team won, but on the other, he was jealous that his team won. Optic didn't win. They still had to play at least one more game. 

"Stop worrying about Optic, remember my hunch," Matt read Hector like a book. They knew each other for years, which meant they both could read each other well. Then Matt heard his phone beep, but it wasn't his normal notification sound. When Matt unlocked his phone he couldn't help but smile when he saw a picture of his team surrounding Ssumday, who was up and moving around just fine. 

"What are you smiling at?" questioned Hector, confused at what would make his friend react like that.

Matt showed him the picture and everything made sense. "I hope I'll get one of those," Hector let slip out, sounding defeated, but it was true. He was unsure what the fate of his team would be, but all he could do was have faith. Have faith in his team. Have faith that they would try their damnedest to win, and Hector knew they would. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, Zven and Mithy have it rough, but I feel like Clutch have it worse. Okay, serious thing though. The whole part where Solo was like "Ireland is a continent" is an actual thing my friend and I argued about for 30 minutes(some of which I have on video), so please feel free to comment below that Ireland is not a continent. Oh, also, GGS vs EF is the next game, in case you guys don't feel like doing the process of elimination yourself.


	6. Bracket 1 Game 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya, ya, insert apology for taking long to update, whoops. Anyway since there are two Matts, Mathew=Deftly and Matt=Matt. I tried to make it as least confusing as possible. Sorry for grammar, I tried to edit it, but I'm tired.

_Now, after a game that left me yawning, 100 Thieves finally defeated Clutch Gaming. I mean really, you guys could have ended that 20 minutes earlier, but whatever the past is the past. Now Golden Guardians, are you ready to try to defeat Echo Fox? Try is the key word there, anyway, the game will be starting soon_ , the voice informed the team. 

 

"Well, someone doesn't have any faith in us," Juan commented. In all fairness, he didn't have the most faith in them either. They finished last overall, and it wasn't like it was necessarily that close between them and playoffs. It also didn't help that they were going to be playing against the team that finished third with arguably their most consistent member unconscious. It didn't help that their coach wasn't a toplane main, but there was that small voice in the back of Juan's mind reminding him that anything could happen in a best of one. That was the only thing he could hold onto at this point, he knew Echo Fox was better, but there was still a chance. 

"Yeah,  but I believe in us. We can do this, I mean it's a best of one against one of the most aggressive teams. Easy game plan, don't die," Matt said. He was the support, so it was obvious what he had to do; support his team. Nothing that he said was untrue either, he really believed they could win. Matt just had to put his worry behind him, he couldn't think about what would happen if they lost. He had to play with no regrets, that was the only way they could win. They shouldn't be afraid to go after a play they believed in. Matt knew that was how most of the team liked to play anyway, they just had to play extremely well in this specific instance. The team had to dance between playing an aggressive and reactive playstyle, but Matt believed in his team, and he had a feeling they would win. 

"When did you become the coach?" Tyler laughed, happy to see one of his players stepping up. He knew Matt was a natural leader, he just needed time to grow, and he was definitely doing so. It made the coach smile, knowing his efforts at making a leader out of Matt were slowly working. Sure, Hai was a natural leader as well, but it felt like they were starting to truly become a team.

"Worried for your job?" Mathew laughed out. Despite the situation they were currently in, he couldn't help but be happy with his support. The adc was proud of his whole team; they had all grown so much. In the long run, Mathew could see the whole team being successful with time, but at the moment he had to focus on winning what he would consider the most important game he ever played. 

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"I'm sorry if I'm not a jungle main, but really, I find it ironic how the only jungler I can play is Rengar," Nick laughed out. The team was attempting to make a team comp that would fit with the coach's champion pool, which wasn't necessarily the best. They were debating whether or not Nick should try to play Sejuani, but all of the players have seen the coach try to play her, which usually ended in Josh facepalming at how bad his coach was at tanks. 

"Yes, somehow we got two Rengar one tricks on our team," Johnny joked, but it honestly was ironic. Josh was known for his Rengar, Nick wasn't, but that's beside the point. It was going to feel good to wake Josh and have their coach play his favorite champion at the same time. The Canadian was confident in their ability to win the game. They finished third in the playoffs, and Golden Guardians finished last, he couldn't help but feel confident in himself and his team. If they couldn't win a game with Josh's life on the line he would really question how good the team actually was. 

"So you guys good with Camille, Regnar, Taliyah, Kalista, and Braum?" Nick asked after a short discussion. The guys replied with a jumbled agreement, and the team started to select their champions one by one. Soon enough all of the champions they wanted were highlighted, and they were just waiting for something, anything to happen. 

"Why nothing happening?" Huni complained. He just wanted the game to start and so he could win. If there was one thing that the Korean didn't lack it was confidence. The only input he gave to the draft was that he wanted to be on a carry. That was all that mattered to him, he knew that if he was given the opportunity to carry he sure as hell would. It didn't matter who was playing, he was going to win for Josh. He couldn't help but be protective of the younger, Josh reminded Huni of himself. They were both so confident in their own ability, not to mention a little toxic at times, obviously reformed at the current moment though. Huni still saw the glint in Josh's eyes though, that glint that showed what a fierce competitor he was and how much winning meant to him. Huni has the same glint in his eyes as he stared at the barrier, waiting for something to happen.

"I don't know, but probably ahg-" Nick cut his own reply off with a groan. His hands flew to his head, and he could hear all the players have a similar reaction. Nick tried to focus on his breathing, waiting for the splitting headache he was experiencing to stop, but it felt like breathing was making the pain in his head increase. He couldn't focus on breathing for too long since the headache was incapacitating. It felt like all Nick could do was just try to wait for the pain to go away, and have no control over the pain level. It felt much longer than it actually was, but that's what happens when magic is involved. That was the one constant in this whole mess, Nick could always blame everything on magic. Now that was a thought he would never believe he would ever actually think in his life. 

"That wasn't pleasant," Adrain remarked, rubbing his temples. That was definitely an understatement, but those were the only words he could think of since his mind was still jumbled from the pain he just experienced.

"You think?"

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Rick didn't want to watch the screen. He trusted his players, but so much more was at risk than any other time he had watched his team play. They were playing for someone's life, they were playing for Josh's life. How could someone not be stressed about that? Josh wasn't just a player to him, he knows Josh, he cares about the kid. Seeing the other guys go through watching their teams compete, especially Jack, just showed how close the games really were. He believed in his team, but he couldn't count out Golden Guardians until their nexus was broken. Rick just had to be in the present, and in the moment. He couldn't picture a future where he was visiting Josh's parents apologizing for their loss, he couldn't imagine all the messages that would be left on twitter about what an amazing player Josh was, he couldn't envision a world where Josh was the one to remain asleep. 

Rick was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Andy say, "Oh, I think they're going for a gank here," and sure enough when Rick looked at the television he saw Nick in the middle toplane bush. Rick watched as Nick jumped out of the bush and actually hit the Ornn. Rick was pretty impressed with the coach since he wasn't expecting him to have that much skill. Sadly, the Kha 'Zix just so happened to be nearby and Nick had taken a lot of damage in the fight. Rick didn't look at the screen, but he heard the familiar sounds of champions fighting. When the owner looked up he saw that Nick had died, and the Kha 'Zix had gotten away, but not because of a lack of trying from Huni.

"At least we got first blood," Rick mumbled, taking the small victory. He had to take them. If he didn't take the small victories he would fall apart. That was one thing that he learned from basketball that would stick with him his whole life. He had to appreciate the small stuff, and worry about the future when it became the present. 

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The most irritating part had to be the shackles around his wrists. They were tight, and Josh knew that if his actual body was like the way his spirit self(the name Josh started calling himself after he realized his consciousness was trapped in some kind of mind prison) was they would definitely leave bruises. He assumed that his team was playing the last game, or they had lost, but Josh assumed it was the first thought. The only team Josh could imagine his team losing to would be TL, but even then the chances that they played each other weren't the highest. Josh went back to pulling at the shackles, trying to get them off, or at least loosen them. He tried to make his hand the skinniest it could be and pulled, but that only caused him pain. Josh wasn't even sure what the point of being chained was, he was a spirit trapped in a dreamland by someone who could do magic. The chains seemed excessive to him. It wasn't like he was going anywhere. 

"Josh?" he heard a voice call out, which caused the jungler to immediately get to his feet and into a defensive position. He didn't know who it was since they were technically in his own mind(Josh was far from an expert when it came to his current situation, but that's what he assumed). It took a few seconds for Josh to recognize the fiery red hair that belonged to his coach.

"Nick?" Josh questioned, wanting to make sure that it really was him and not some other random redhead. In all honesty, Josh couldn't think of any other person with hair like that to accompany him in his conciousness, but it didn't hurt to double check.

"Yeah, are you good?" Nick questioned and quickly ran over to him. He looked at Josh's shackles and his hands quickly try to pry them open, but to no avail. He went to the gym, but not enough to pry metal apart.

"Peachy," Josh replied as something dawned on him, "Wait, how are you here? What's happening?"

"I have no idea how I'm here, all I know is that I died in game and then I was here. Apparently ganking Ornn as Rengar takes a chunk out of your health bar, and Contractz is good at predicting enemy junglers," Nick explained, but right before either of the two could say another word Nick disappeared. Josh was a little baffled by the information he just received. His coach actually tried to gank Ornn as Rengar, he laughed thinking that Huni was most likely the reason why. Actually, it wasn't most likely, it was one hundred percent Huni who asked for a gank top, so nothing new. Juan was always good at predicting what his role opponent was doing, so once again that was nothing new to Josh, but that made him realized something. Juan played for Golden Guardians, and he saw Sam when all of the sleeping players were in the circle together. So, by the communitive property, he was playing against Sam. Sam was the one that was asleep on Golden Guardians, and if his team won and he woke up that meant that Sam might not wake up. That means that one of the only people that was always nice to Josh, even when he didn't deserve it, could be trapped in a sleeping state forever. This game wasn't just Echo Fox vs Golden Guardians, it was Josh vs Sam, it was friend vs friend to fight to see who would be able to wake up.

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"I'm fine, stop babying me," Jesper complained as Alfonso asked if he was okay for what felt like the hundredth time. He appreciated his boyfriend being protective of him, especially after the spectacle that happened before, but enough was enough. All Jesper wanted to do was cuddle with his boyfriend, and watch the remaining games, he hated how it seemed like all the other players kept looking at him as if to make sure he was okay. He despised being the center of attention. 

"I'll stop babying you when you stop passing out and imagining that I die," Alfonso countered. He couldn't help but be worried about Jesper since everything was his fault. The support couldn't even imagine what the other had been through, and just hoped that his boyfriend wouldn't have another nightmare.

"Great, now I have to deal with you the rest of my life," Jesper joked, unable to have a serious conversation. "I might as well get comfortable if I'm stuck with you the rest of my life," Jesper sighed as he snuggled deeper into Alfonso. 

"We lived with them for months," Kevin said across the room to Søren as he stared at the European couple, "How did we not notice?" He truly couldn't believe that somehow Jesper and Alfonso hid their relationship for as long as they did. Kevin didn't even know how long they were together, it hurt his brain trying to think of any signs the two should that they were a couple.

"I don't know," muttered Søren, he was still thinking about the C9 game. He couldn't get the images of all of the pained faces out of his mind. They were all he could think about. It didn't help that if Dennis was the one to stay asleep, it would be all his fault. He was the reason they won the game, if he didn't decide to play, they wouldn't have won. Søren tried to listen to the rest of what Kevin was saying, but he couldn't. He just went further into his own mind, replaying every moment of the game. That was until the Dane noticed a hand was being waved in front of his face.

"Earth to Søren, do you read me?" Kevin questioned, looking the midlaner in the eye while doing so. Kevin was no mind reader, but he was pretty sure he knew what was bothering Søren, "They are going to win, stop blaming yourself."

"I can't, the only way to make me stop is if they already won and I can see that they are all right in front of me in good condition," Søren countered. It was true, that was the only way that his anxiety could possibly lessen. 

"This is probably the first and last time I will ever say this, but listen to Kevin," a certain adc interjected. Søren looked at Peter, and he could tell that he meant what he said. It was definitely a rare occurrence that his ex-teammate would actually agree with Kevin. The comment almost made Søren listen to Kevin, but he still couldn't stop his mind. He wished he could just stop thinking, but his mind didn't work like that. It never stopped, and Søren hated it. For once, he just wanted to stop thinking about all the what-ifs, and focus on the present. 

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They may have been too confident going into the game. In Matt's professional opinion they were getting destroyed. The only kill they had was from when Juan killed the Rengar after he ganked top. After that, it was the Huni show. He was roaming across the map, and Matt was pretty sure he killed every one of his teammates at least once. It was not looking the best for them. They only had two outer turrets left, which were the tier twos in the top and bot lane. It was barely over 20 minutes in, but Echo Fox just felt so far ahead. He didn't even want to guess what the gold difference was since he alone died three times already. Matt wasn't going to give up though, he couldn't, Sam was on the line, the one person who was consistently his teammate. He wished that he could be the one to be able to talk to Sam when he died, Matt just wanted to see that famous smile and be told that they could still win the game from his best friend. It wasn't up to him though, and Matt just had to accept that.

"Guys protect bot turret, looks like they are going to try to dive," Hai called out. It was the obvious macro move. The ocean dragon was up and they already had their duo in the bot lane. Hai assumed that their plan was to take the bot turret than rotate to the dragon, and it seemed like an easy place to get a few picks and turn the game around. The team made their way towards the tower, and lucky for them Hai's prediction was right. Just as they reached the lane the Rengar dove under the turret from out of nowhere. They burst him down decently fast, but not fast enough to kill the duo lane. 

"Can we rush baron?" Juan questioned almost immediately after they killed the enemy jungler. He didn't know if they could do it in time, but he was confident in his smiting ability against an autofilled coach who they just killed.

"Let's go for it."

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This was the one instance that Josh wished someone from his team would die in game. He had to talk to one of them. He just had to get his message across. If he didn't he would feel broken if what he thought would happen happened. Josh wanted someone from his team to appear next to him so bad. Being trapped, unable to know what was going on was killing him, the least the dude with magic could do was set up a nice television so he could watch the games, but no. Josh had to sit in the darkness and try to guess what was happening. Josh just wanted someone from his team to visit him in his greyscale prison. As if on command, he saw a familiar mess of red hair appear.

"Guess who's ba-" Nick's greeting was cut off by the frantic sentences that Josh were saying. 

"Nick, please. I know this is going to sound crazy, but please listen to me. Do you promise to do what I say?" Josh spoke rapidly, scared about how much time they had together. 

The coach didn't know what to say but nodded as he moved towards Josh, who looked like he was on the verge of having a panic attack.

"You have to convince the guys to throw the game. I don't know how, but you have to, and don't argue with me we don't have much time. I believe in you guys, I know you can win a game against anyone, but I don't have that same trust in Sam's team. Please, you know me, and you know I wouldn't act like this if it wasn't important to me," Josh pleaded. Nick was caught off guard, he never imagined this conversation would happen with Josh of all people. 

"Josh, I don't kno-" once again Nick was cut off by the anxiety-ridden jungler.

"If you don't throw this game, and Sam ends up being the ultimate loser, I would never forgive myself, I would never forgive you. Please, I trust you guys, and even if I end up being the one stuck asleep, I would be fine with that. Sam is better than me, he deserves to be able to live a full life. Please, Nick. Convince the guys to forfeit, please. I've said please more times in this conversation than I have my whole life, so please, lose the game. Let Sam wake up. Please," Nick let the words sink in. He didn't necessarily disagree with any of Josh's words, but agreeing with them and being able to convince the team to go along with his plan were two different things. Before he could give Josh any sort of reply he was back on Summoner's Rift.

"Guys, what's going on?" Nick questioned, trying to get a sense of what was happening. If he was actually considering Josh's insane plan he had to at least know how close they were to winning. 

"They tried to rush baron after you died, they got it, but almost everyone died because of it," Johnny replied, informing his coach of their accomplishments. 

Nick knew that he at least had to tell the team about Josh's wish for them to throw the game, he didn't have to try to convince them of it, but he at least had to tell them what he said, "Guys, when I was talking to Josh when I died he said that he wanted to let GGS win."

This made all the members of Echo Fox disagree with the statement in some way, the most audible being Huni, "Why? Why did he say this?"

Nick sighed, "He believes we can win another game, but he doesn't think GGS can. He doesn't want to be responsible if Sam ends up being the one stuck asleep."

"You're not serious," Huni argued.

This time Johnny was the one to reply, "I believe him, and in more ways than one. I know that we can beat the other teams, especially the ones that lost already. If I know Josh, if we don't do what he wants, he will most likely never talk to us again."

"That is more or less what he said," Nick agreed, "So what are we doing?"

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Mathew got ready for what would most likely be an attack on their base. He stood next to Juan, who barely got out of their disaster of a baron. Apparently, it didn't matter if the enemy jungler was dead when they were thousands of gold behind. Who knew? It didn't matter though, they weren't out of the game yet. Just as he thought that he saw all five members of Echo Fox in the midlane, but it didn't seem like they were aggressive. It seemed like they were just casually walking towards their base. The two remaining guardians got ready to fight, but then they heard the other team trying to talk to them.

"Guys," Inero yelled, "I know you have no reason to trust us right now, but we surrender. You guys can just go through mid and end," this confused the two. Neither believed the coach, but they also couldn't come up with a good reason not to. They were about to win, why would they ever surrender?"

Juan spoke up before Mathew, "Why?" he questioned.

"I talked to Josh, he said that he wants Sam to wake up. He thinks we have a better chance of winning a game than you guys," Nick was able to talk at a normal volume. They were just outside of Golden Guardians' base where Mathew and Juan stayed hesitantly by their inhibitor turret. 

As the two were exchanging their ideas about what was happening the others respond. When they told the team about what Echo Fox had told them all of the players seemed shocked except one.

Matt was the one to finally convince everyone that they were telling the truth, "Josh and Sam are close, and Sam was never not nice to Josh. It makes sense guys. I've known both of them for a while, and even though Josh isn't the kindest person in the world, I wouldn't put it past him to want to save Sam. I think we have an easy decision."

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"What are they doing?" Rick whispered, barely able to get the words out of his mouth. The game had been going so well, he wasn't the best at Leauge, but he knew it was almost certain his team would win. He didn't understand why they were doing what they were doing. One moment they were killing the opposing team, the next they were escorting them down the midlane. Rick was truly confused on what made them do what they were doing. It didn't make any sense.

"They're surrendering," Andy said simply, speechless as to why they would be doing that. It baffled him that any team would ever just give up when they were that close to winning a game.

"But why?" Rick questioned, that was the only thing he cared about knowing at that moment. He just wanted to have an answer, a reason why.

"Sam," Steve said quietly. This got the attention of the other three owners, "Somehow Josh must have convinced them to surrender because of Sam. It's the only reasonable explanation. If I know anything about Josh it's that if someone ever said something negative about Sam he would snap at them. Josh must have told his team to forfeit to save Sam. That is the only explanation there is."

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Sam couldn't help but smile when he realized his team somehow was able to have a comeback against Echo Fox. Sure it made him a little sad that it was against Josh's team, but Sam was confident that the team could win a game to keep Josh safe. He was focusing on the present though, so he couldn't help but smile at his teammates, but he noticed how none of them seem to share his joy. 

"How did you guys come back anyway?" Sam questioned, which to him was just an innocent question, but unbeknownst to him, it was a topic his team wasn't looking forward to talking about.

"About that," Matt sighed, he knew he had to be the one to say what happened, "We were about to lose. Only Mathew and Juan were alive and ready to fight, but they didn't need to. It turned out that when Inero died Josh told him to surrender the game. Josh convinced his team to surrender the game to keep you safe."

"He did what?" Sam shouted a little louder than intended, but for good reason. Josh, the most competitive person Sam has ever known, purposely lost to keep him safe. Sam couldn't help be annoyed and slightly angry that Josh really had no faith in his team. Than another emotion hit that Sam couldn't quite place, but he knew that as soon as it was possible, he was going to kill Josh.

The Joshua Hartnett valued Samson Jackson above himself, that was something Sam never believed would be a reality.  

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He couldn't help but smile, he was safe, and that's all that mattered. Josh knew that his team listened to him, there was no way that it would take more than twenty minutes to close the game, and he couldn't help but be proud of himself. He saved Sam. Josh actually was able to save probably the only person he cared a decent amount about that wasn't currently on his team. How could he not smile? Josh just outsmarted his magical kidnapper.

_Oh, Josh, that's what you think, huh? That you outsmarted me. Well you forget, I am in charge of this show, and you have no power while I am here. You will soon learn that you do not try to trick a magician. Trust me Joshie, you will regret your decision._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You just got done reading Josh is Reformed, Hope you liked it. Lmao, anyway I hope I can get somewhat consistent with the next few chapters, but there are only 4 left, so who cares, I'll finish this in 4 months. Lol, I hope not, but I'm sleep deprived and I high key thought I posted this hours ago, lmao.


	7. The Special Challenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haven't uploaded blah blah. Really shit of me blah blah. I'll try blah blah. Empty promises blah blah.

_It may have crossed some of your small minds, but there is an odd number of teams, so I have a special little challenge for the remaining of you. It is very simple, the coaches of each team will undergo a race around Summoners Rift. Now I know, you don't all have the luxury of going outside often to be in peak physical condition, so I'll throw you a bone. I'll make it so we combine two legendary games into one, and make a fantastic show for me to watch. I hope you're ready my little coaches, for some Mario Kart: League of Legends addition. I'm about to set up, and then we'll be off to the races._

"That isn't fair, we have a definite disadvantage," Zach said looking at his coach. He wasn't wrong, Reapered was not the best driver. The adc would rather get in a car with Jensen behind the wheel, and that spoke volumes about how he felt about his coach's driving skills. To put it nicely: they were subpar. He wished they could pick someone from the team to go into the race because Dennis' life could possibly be in the hands of Reapered's non-existent driving skills, and Zach didn't want to make that gamble. Zach believes in himself and his teammates to win a game, against what would most likely be one of the teams lower in the standing, but anything could happen in one game. That doesn't even count how the man who started this whole thing could just use magic to manipulate the results. Maybe he was a C9 fan and could make Reapered a somewhat decent driver, Zach didn't know what to think. 

"Racist," the coach mumbled out. He didn't think his driving was that bad, it just needed some work. It wasn't like he didn't have a license or anything, it was legal for him to drive, just not in America. Reapered never played Mario before, but it couldn't be that hard. It was just driving, and he could definitely drive. 

"Zach is not racist. It's like if you called Andy a nerd. It's not because he's Asian, it's because Andy is very much a nerd," Jensen clarified. If his coach's Mario Kart skills were anything like his Go Kart skills, the Dane worried for the lives of everyone that he was racing against. Jensen enjoyed the fact that even with so much pressure on them, his team could still joke around. Jensen wasn't worried yet, he would start worrying if they lost their next game after what will definitely be a loss for their coach in Mario Kart. Dennis would be fine, sure they didn't win their first game, but it was against TSM, it was against Søren. For some reason, the other Dane seemed to be Jensen's kryptonite. Even after solo killing him multiple times, Søren still managed to get a Penta, that just shows how balanced Zoe was. Jensen knew that who deserved to win, won. Søren purposely didn't fight back. He didn't try to even remotely hurt anyone from C9 until the last fight. Jensen was the last one on his team to die, and he saw the pain in Søren's eyes when it came to hurting him, to hurting anyone. It made Jensen hope that Reapered would be able to win a competition that involved driving, but he knew his coach wouldn't, he knew he would have to hurt more people. 

"Earth to Jensen, you can't just insult me than totally zone out," Andy said. waving a hand in front of the midlaner's face, who completely ignored the hurt expression on the support's face. Andy knew Jensen well enough by now to know what he was thinking about, and apparently so did Zach. 

"Don't think about Søren or the last game at all in that matter. Stop feeling bad, he'll understand, and if I know anything about him, he'll probably be blaming himself. What's it with Danes and self-pity?" Zach moved towards Jensen, who was sitting on one of the six beds in the black room they were returned to after they lost. The carry flopped down next to his friend, bouncing slightly as he did so. 

"We must feel responsible for all of you idiotic Americans," Jensen smiled as he lightly pushed Zach, so he toppled on his side. 

"I take offense to that," Eric, who remained quiet throughout the whole exchange spoke up. He wanted to join the conversation before, but his inability to socialize well was his downfall. His socialization skills didn't stop him from smiling at his teammates, some of the people he admired the most. In one of the worst situations that could ever happen to them, they managed to not only remain calm but also joke around with each other. Eric hoped one day that he could be as outgoing as them and finally shake his fear of talking to others, but first things first. He had to help save Dennis in the next game they played because Reapered was sure as hell going to be the first one out of the race.

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"This is taking longer than expected," Apollo said, just wanting to break the silence. They had lost another close game against 100 Thieves, and he hated it. He wished they could have just won the game, saved Fabian, and spared themselves from what would most likely be another game. David said that he was pretty decent at Mario Kart, so maybe they didn't even have to play against another team. That would be optimal, not having to risk playing a best of one. Apollo was confident that they could pull out a win against a team that ended lower in the standings, but the thought of anything could happen was always present in the back of his mind. 

"I know, this better be some high-quality Mario Kart," Colin agreed, he wasn't the best at judging time, but in his rough estimate was that fifteen minutes had passed since they first found out about the challenge. They had all figured that there had to be something in between the second round of games since there was an odd number of teams, but none of them had even thought about a coach battle in Mario Kart. 

 _This is going to be some high-quality Mario Kart, and it's about to start. Coaches, are you ready? Well, it doesn't matter if you are or not, I was just being polite_ , with that David disappeared from the room and was now in the midlane of Summoner's Rift in a Go-Kart. The coach looked around to see all the other coaches, one surprisingly being Inero. David was caught slightly off-guard that Golden Guardians actually beat the 3rd place team, but he just assumed that was because anything could happen in a best of one. He had never driven a Go-Kart before, but it couldn't be that different from an actual car. 

 _So here are the rules, you start right here in the middle of the midlane, and you go straight towards the red side. You can go either to the left or the right, it doesn't matter to me as long as you follow the base walls on the outside. Then you take either top or botlane to blue side, drive around that base wall, and come to the midlane. There is only going to be one start, and one of you will be eliminated each round. Just don't be the last one to cross over this spot, and you're all good. Now for the little details, the turrets will be activated, so you'll have to dodge tower shots. You can also cut through the river at your own risk to try to get ahead of everyone else. But remember, I warned you. Now, since I'm so kind I'll give all of you a little practice. I'll be back soon_ , the voice finished. David couldn't help but wonder what the voice was doing while they were allowed to practice. The coach knew one thing though, the practice time wasn't going to be out of the kindness of his heart. 

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Jason was tired of the fact that he was alone. He liked being around people and talking, his current situation couldn't be further off. He was chained in darkness, alone, with no one to talk to besides himself. He found himself entertaining, but he could only make so many self-deprecating jokes; they started to feel too real after long enough. So now, he was just trying to imagine a world in which his team won, and allowed him to be free. The problem with that fantasy was just that, it was obvious his team didn't win the first game, but lucky for him other teams didn't as well. He just hoped that his teammates would be able to pull out a win against one of the lower standing teams, but Jason was optimistic. He was always optimistic. If he wasn't, something was terribly wrong with him.

Jason was going through all the possibilities for his team to win when he felt the familiar pull. The pull almost made him throw up last time, and it was no different this time. Jason didn't understand how anyone could go through being dematerialized and then rematerialized without feeling the least bit sick, but he was sure someone somehow was not affected by it. Jason wished he was one of those people. As his eyes were finally allowed to focus the carry could tell he was in a similar setting as before, but this time other players accompanied him. They weren't in a circle like the last time Jason saw everyone in a similar state as him. This time they were in a straight line, sadly shackles were still around their wrists and ankles. They each were connected to their own metal ring on the floor. Jason was in the middle of the five players, Dennis was directly to his right, Josh was on his far right, while directly on his left was Fabian, and Tristan was on his far left. It seemed as though they could touch the people directly next to each other, but it wasn't like that was much help. None of them had a secret talent at picking locks, well that's what Jason assumed, but it wasn't that hard of an assumption to make. 

Jason hated the fact that Dennis was still asleep. They hadn't played together for that long, but Dennis was always friendly and kind. Even after he left TSM, Jason still heard stories about the jungler from Søren about how they had bonded and were really close. Jason appreciated the fact that Dennis was able to become so close to Søren because Jason knew from first-hand experience how hard it was to get through his shell. To put it simply: It wasn't easy. As Jason glanced at Dennis, it then registered to him that Josh was here. It puzzled Jason that Echo Fox lost after such a dominant victory in the third-place match, but he just assumed that they lost to Team Liquid or maybe 100 Thieves. It wasn't a complete shock that Optic lost, it was a little more surprising that Clutch lost, but they did get pretty much destroyed by Echo Fox in Miami. It took a moment for Jason to realize that he saw that no one from Golden Guardians was present. Instinctively, the adc almost gave himself whiplash by turning his head to make sure that he didn't mistake Samson for someone else, but he didn't. 

Apparently, he wasn't the only one to notice, because Fabian was the first to speak up, "One, what the hell is going on. Two, who the fuck lost to Golden Guardians?" he turned his head towards Tristan when he asked the last question. It wasn't that he thought that Optic wasn't good. Well that was exactly what Fabian thought, but they did finish ninth. Fabian didn't know who actually believed in Optic at this point. 

"Don't look at me like that," Tristan pushed Fabian gently which caused the other midlaner to laugh, "We played TL," he said through the laughs. Fabian did raise a good question though. Tristan was curious who lost to the last place team. He looked at all the players and assumed that it was most likely FlyQuest, because he couldn't see any other team actually losing to them. It was the most sensible possibility that Tristan could think of. 

 _The fuck who lost to Golden Guardians is none other than Joshua_ , that caused everyone to immediately look at the Echo Fox jungler.  _Don't worry though, he will pay for that loss, but that's enough of that. Now, I'm going to tell you why I have gathered you here today. As you all know, five is an odd number, so I need to make the number even again to play the rest of the games. I came up with the intelligent idea of making League of Legends Mario Kart. Your coaches will be participating in it. I know, I know, I'm such a nice guy, because whoever's coach wins, they get to wake up. I don't know why people call me the bad guy when I'm doing such nice things. Anyway, since I feel extra nice at the moment, I'll allow all of you to watch the race live_ , and with that, the hooded man quickly appeared, snapped his fingers, then disappeared leaving what seemed like a hologram in his place.

They all looked at the screen, not wanting to look at each other because they all knew that one of them would be the ultimate loser, one of them would never wake up again. None of them wanted to face that truth though; they didn't want to feel guilty about rooting for their coach when it would be the death sentence for one of the players right next to them. Some knew each other better than others, some would even be classified as friends, but when it came to life or death, they all knew what they wanted to do. Sure, they felt bad for the person that would be stuck asleep, but they weren't so close that one of them would die from the guilt of being the reason the other didn't wake up.

Fabian broke the silence once again, "Okay, I'm really curious. How the fuck did you end up losing to Golden Guardians?"

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"Wait is he going through the river?" asked Darshan, referring to the coach of Clutch, who was currently in second. It was only the first lap, but apparently, David felt like he could make the shortcut and get ahead of everyone. Darshan wasn't too sure about how that would go since the rules of the game that appeared on the stream made it very clear that going through the river was extremely risky.

"I feel like you could answer that by yourself," Tony replied, he agreed with Darshan though. It was not going to bode well for David. Tony could only imagine what challenge would be in the river after he saw what their kidnapper was putting TSM through. Soon enough he found out though. At first, Tony thought that the voice was just joking about something being in the river; he took back that thought a second later when the river was filled with all of the monsters meant to be on the bot side of the map, other than a dragon. The coach was soon surrounded by wolves, raptors, krugs, and every other creature in the game. The camera seemed to be fixated on David as he struggled to fend off everything. In the right corner where the map usually was, it showed where the coaches were on the map. Inero was first, followed by Zaboutine and Rapidstar, while Reapered seemed to be a decent distance between him and the other coaches.

The coach took a break from watching the race to look around the room he was currently in. Most of the players watched in groups with their teammates, there were some exceptions. Peter and Vincent were watching together with no one else around, the same was for Jesper and Alfonso, although they were a lot more touchy-feely than the former. Tony than caught sight of Samson, that poor boy. Tony couldn't help but feel sorry for him, but also somewhat proud of Josh. On the one hand, Sam was forced to watch games very well knowing that he should be one of the people at risk. Sam, had to watch, knowing that if anything happened to Josh, it was because of him. Even though Sam had no control over what Josh did, he would still feel guilty. Who wouldn't? Then, he felt a feeling that he could only describe as a proudness for Josh. Tony may have only coached Josh for a short amount of time, but in that time he still got somewhat attached to the cocky kid. Knowing that same kid who transferred to CLG all that time ago ended up choosing someone else's well being over his own made Tony smile. He wasn't smiling for the situation everyone was forced into, he smiled for the person that Josh had become and hopefully would continue to become.

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Within about two minutes after the races started Fabian and Dennis had already disappeared from there place in the line of hostages. Every time a coach got eliminated, the respective player vanished, leaving no trace. Tristan assumed that they went back to their individual prisons, that's what he hoped because they certainly weren't going to wake up. Tristan turned his attention back to the hologram with the coaches on it. Thomas was right next to Rapidstar in the toplane, while Nick was a little ahead of them on the bot side. As long as Thomas wasn't last though, he still had a chance to win. 

Thomas just passed the river, a little ahead of the FlyQuest coach, but not by a lot. The space between the two was slowly diminishing. Tristan bit his lip. He was worried. Even though Nick seemed to be a decent amount ahead of the other two coaches, there was still hope for Tristan if Thomas could just stay in second. It wasn't like Tristan didn't trust his team, he would just feel extra secure if he could just wake up because of the pretty good Mario Kart skills Tristan never knew his coach possessed. Now that he thought about it, Tristan didn't even know if Thomas ever player Mario Kart. 

Tristan hadn't looked at the others since the actual game started. He hated the fact that wanting himself to wake up, also made him want one of them to remain asleep. At the end of the day, he wanted to wake up. Tristan wished that everyone could just wake up and be okay, or that this whole ordeal was just a dream, but it wasn't. He was really stuck unconscious along with a few other players, waiting for his team to wake him up by winning a game. It sounded like a poorly thought out fanfiction idea to him, but that was just his opinion. Tristan could only imagine how wrong people would write him, or generally how inaccurately people's perception of him was. His main motivation was never money, it was just having fun with a job that he loved, and if that meant joining NA than he was going to join and move to Los Angles. 

Thomas was rounding the corner by the blue side gates when disaster struck for him. As he was turning, Rapidstar nudged his kart the slightest bit, making Thomas lose control. All of Tristan's hope of waking disappeared as he saw his coach crash and burn, literally. His coach had to jump out of his kart to avoid being engulfed in flames. Tristan sighed. He continued to watch as the other coach crossed the finish line, then he felt the pull in his gut. Tristan surprisingly didn't mind the feeling. He wouldn't suggest being split into every little atom that makes you yourself on the daily, but he wasn't against the feelings it caused. It made Tristan feel whole as if his whole body was in perfect balance. Tristan laid on his back, his hands over his eyes and took a deep breath. He tried his best to embrace the feeling of every particle that made up his body being where it was supposed to be. Tristan tried his best to feel at peace with his current situation, because this may be his new normal. 

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Nick was so close to winning. All he had to do was not crash, and Josh would be able to wake up. All he had to do was keep his lead against whichever coach didn't get eliminated the last round. Nick turned left and went to drive down toplane. He had a system where he would switch sides so he wouldn't lose momentum or zone out. It helped him stay on his toes. He passed the two red side towers pretty easily since he could see where they were aimed. Thinking about it, Nick thinks the only one to actually get hit by a tower shot was Reapered. Nick shook his head and focused on what was ahead of him. He was about to pass the river when he heard a roar. Nick jumped a little. He had no idea what was going on, since all of his previous times going toplane never resulted in him hearing a roar. The coach looked around, making sure that there was nothing around that was a danger to him, but then he heard it again. 

The ground shook and spit dirt up as a giant purple worm came out of the ground in front of Nick. He immediately stepped on the breaks, but his reaction time wasn't fast enough. Nick crashed into the Baron Nasher. He screamed like a little girl in the process, but the coach could care less. The only thing that mattered to Nick was keeping his heart beating, as well as not getting eaten alive, which was a very good possibility at the moment. Nick tried to back up his kart, but the engine died; he cursed to himself and started running. Nick hoped that the other coach was having as much trouble as he was. The Echo Fox coach ran past the Baron or at least tried to. He was hit by its tail and flung into the tier 1 blue side turret. Unlucky for Nick, the turret finally got it's target lock on and he was berated with tower shots. It got to the point where Nick could barely move, yet he could still see the Baron inching towards him. As it lunged at the coach with its teeth barred, Nick disappeared. 

"Bold Prediction: You didn't win," Johnny said as Nick appeared into the room they all first appeared in. He was on his knees with his hand defensively covering his face. Since it wasn't like they could watch what happened Johnny could only assume, and from the position of his coach, something not good happened.

Nick opened his eyes and realized that he wasn't about to be eaten by a giant purple worm. He immediately relaxed his body, and replied, "I'm sorry if a giant worm attacked me and made me get shot like 5 times by a turret. I wonder what dragon I would've run into if I just went bot."

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"How is that fair?" Rick asked the other owners as he pointed to the television. Nick was being attacked by Baron while Rapidstar was getting helped by a cloud drake. The dragon was helping him go faster. That did not seem fair in the least. 

"It's not, but that's the point," Steve replied. The only part of the race that was unfair was right before Echo Fox won, so it was clear to Steve that it was because of how they threw the last game. It was the only thing that made sense. Whoever was behind everything must now have it out for Josh, who uncharacteristically allowed Sam to be the one to wake up. There was no other reason.

"Why is this happening to them, out of everyone?" Rick asked. He wasn't exactly looking for an answer, but Andy never ceased to disappoint.

"Something happened to my guys too. It's killing me to know what happened, but I guess I just have to wait," Andy replied. It was true, he knew Jesper was awake, but he felt like something was just off about the picture he got. When he investigated further he saw tears on Jesper's face. Andy knew that something happened to him, the owner just didn't know what.

"The difference is that your team won. They didn't have some supernatural being stopping them from winning," Rick put his head in his hands. He knew that Andy was trying to help in his own way, but that didn't change the fact that Josh was still in trouble. There could still be a world where Josh doesn't wake up, not because of his team not winning, but because their kidnapper made it impossible for them to win. 

Jack spoke up, "Well, if something happened to Zven, because who knows why I don't think Josh will stay asleep. I don't think this is comforting, but if he wanted to punish Josh, I feel like it wouldn't have anything to do with preventing him from winning." Jack hated what he said out loud, but it felt almost wrong to keep his beliefs from Rick. At least he could know that Josh most likely wouldn't be the one asleep, but that still meant that Dennis could be the ultimate loser. Jack just hoped that they didn't play Echo Fox in the next round; he had faith in his boys, just not who might intervene with the game.

"Thank you so much, Jack, I am definitely not more worried than I was to start out."

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Will didn't know what to think when he felt the same pull like when he was first transported into the game. He closed his eyes and braced himself for just about anything he could possibly think of. When the support felt whole again, he opened his eyes. Will was shocked to see his coach and Jason in front of him as well as all of the other players who had won. He smiled immediately and gave Jason a bro hug. His friend may not have been saved by anything he had done, but Will would take anything he was given at that point. 

"I'm never going to make any more jokes about Koreans and driving again," Jason laughed out as he went through all of his teammates giving them hugs, as well as a few ex-teammates. He couldn't help flashing his classic wide grin. A lot of the players laughed with him, he then noticed one who wasn't.

While Jason was hugging Søren he whispered, "I saw Dennis, he is okay, and he will be okay." Jason then walked away, not wanting to draw too much attention to him and Søren, but Jason knew him well enough to know what was wrong. He also knew that the only way for Søren to relax was for Cloud 9 to win. Jason just hoped that would be soon.

_Hello everyone, I hope you enjoyed that short intermission. Now, it's time to get back to the games. Up next will be Cloud 9 vs Optic Gaming. Hopefully, this will be an entertaining one. I'll talk to y'all later. Goodbye for now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I explained the challenge well. If you have any questions just comment and ask. I'll happily answer. For anyone who wants it, here is a link to my twitter: https://twitter.com/NightcoreNatio6. Feel free to dm me one shot ideas or questions about Sleeping Beauties. Anyway I have a shit ton of homework to do, so instead of doing that I'm going to watch Huhi and Zven duo. Bya.


	8. Bracket 2 Game 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is in celebration of my favorite team making it to semis(G2) and the fact that one of my tweets was featured on the latest Ask TSM episode. Anyway, I know I'm absolutely awful at uploading, but I've warned you. Honestly, a lot of stuff has been happening in my life lately(some good, some bad), and I've had to sadly take some of my focus off of my internet life. I hope the next chapter won't take as long, but I'm pretty sure I've apologized for the lack of uploading in every single one of my chapter notes. Lmao. I promise I will finish this eventually.

Matt laid on his bed with his eyes closed. He tried his best to relax his body, and prepare for the game they were about to play. It was hard though, he didn't have his music to help him get in the right mindset; he didn't even have Tristan. The German was always good at relaxing Matt and giving him little tips to help calm him down before games. It helped. Even though Tristan liked to meme and joke around a lot, some things that came out of his mouth were actually useful. Matt took a deep breath and thought about his roommate one more time before he opened his eyes.

"Good to see you're awake," Derek said as he saw Matt open his eyes. The toplaner had no problem with him sleeping, anything that would help the team relax and reset for their next game against C9 he would take. Derek wished he could somehow find the willpower to sleep, but apparently, his mental wasn't as good as Matts'.

Matt pulled himself into a sitting position, "I wasn't asleep," he mumbled out while rubbing his eyes. He was telling the truth; he was just so wrapped up in his own mind it must have seemed like he had somehow fallen asleep. Matt would have loved to get some rest before fighting for Tristan's life but that seemed impossible at the moment. 

Thomas sighed, "Just prepare your mind for what's to come. It will be a hard fought battle, but I believe in us as a team. We were just beaten by the first place team, not some lower level team. C9 is more on our level, we can beat them if we attack where they are weak. That being said, focus whichever position the coach is in, and put as much stress on Reapered as possible. If we can do that, hopefully, the rest of the team will collapse with him." That was the best plan he could come up with, without Tristan to play around their only game plan was to just shut down the enemy team and hope for a team fight win into Baron. 

"You got it, coach," Derek replied as he and the rest of the team were sent back into the rift. They were much more efficient with time management since they already knew how everything worked. The Optic players and coach spent most of their time discussing strategies and macro that would help their team comp which was: Sion, Skarner, Orianna, Xayah, and Rakan. Thomas was starting to explain how Matt showed gank bot as soon as he reached level six when they heard their capturer. 

_Welcome to Summoner's Rift, and remember there is no way out of this!_

"Does he have to say that every time? It's just creepy," Matt said as he started moving towards the enemy red buff. He tried his best to breathe and stay calm, but it wasn't easy when all he could think of was how it would be his fault if Tristan didn't wake up. Sure, it was a team game, but he knows that he wasn't playing his best during the regular season, anyone who watched a game could see that. He just hoped he could win one of the most important games of his life, for Tristan's sake. 

"Well," Daerek started, "I don't think he has to. It's used more as a scare tactic to try to frighten us as well as a showing of his power." The support wasn't wrong, but he was lacking the understanding of a rhetorical question.

Matt sighed as he walked across the river, "Thank you for that wonderful contribution to the conversation." 

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"Brain?" Reapered questioned as he stared at Zach who now had a gauntlet on his hand and steampunk goggles tangled in his hair that was now somewhat styled up. The Cloud 9 coach definitely thought the new look was interesting, he wouldn't call it good, but it was something. They had decided to go for a much more safe and mobile adc to try to avoid dying at all times, actually, that was their strategy for all the lanes. They drafted the most agile champions in hopes of not getting killed because it wasn't the best feeling. There was only one reason why they would lose against Optic, himself. Reapered was in no way a jungle main, or any kind of main at that(unless he included WoW). He knew that the last game was on him. He missed the smite, and couldn't secure the baron. If they had they would have most likely won the game. All of the guys, for the most part, knew how to play their champions, and playing them in-game was just a slight adjustment, but for Reapered it was much harder. He didn't spend what probably added up to days learning every little detail about the right way to work a champion. That's why he chose Kha 'Zix again. He had somewhat gotten a hang of the champion last game, so it made the most sense to pick again. 

"I don't know, all of this hair gel is probably going to melt it," Zach replied, feeling his hair, unable to make it budge an inch. He didn't even know where to start with describing how the top of his head felt. The most accurate word he could think of was sticky, but there was no way in hell he was going to say that out loud anytime soon. So, he kept his innuendo to himself and started to make his way to the red buff with his coach and support. He tried his best to breathe as he made his way through the jungle, trying his best not to trip over his own two feet in his boots. Zach was just glad that the ground was smooth, and didn't seem to have a single hole or rock that wasn't supposed to be there.

Andy laughed, "Look at me," as he twirled his decently long mustache with his left arm as he tried his best to drag around his shield. It wasn't like he was used to carrying around all that dead weight that could very much be compared to Zach in laning phase. He set his shield down in the grass leaned against the wall. He may have had the strength to carry it, but he didn't know the right position in which his arm wouldn't cramp up. Andy just assumed that he could figure it out after they started laning. 

Zach let out a laugh as he leaned against the rock wall of the camp. He turned his wrist so the hologram with all of his stats popped up and leveled up his Q. Just after he closed the hologram he saw the grass move. He immediately hopped back behind Andy who picked his shield up from the ground. Zach waited a few seconds before he relaxed, he assumed the grass just moved because of him, Andy, or Reapered. That was a mistake. As soon as Zach snuck out from behind Andy he saw the binding too late. Zach cursed himself for leveling his mystic shot up, because of course, his time was awful. Andy tried to block as much damage with his shield as possible, but it wasn't enough. It was a five vs three, and Zach was caught. It didn't take long for him to go down since Ezreal level 1 wasn't exactly known for his tankiness. He didn't even have the time to heal or flash before he was surrounded by darkness. It was only for a split second though, and then he was back in the fountain, glad to hear that he was the only one who died, other than the red buff. Zach made his way back to lane as best he could, hoping the Sneaky in lane meme wouldn't be a harsh reality, but with that start,  he just hoped Reapered would gank bot. 

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Will cringed as he watched Zach die. It wasn't pleasant seeing his best friend get practically blown up by the other team. That's when he kept having to remember that it was only a game, and Zach didn't really just die. It was hard though, but luckily he respawned a second later, relieving Will from at least some of his stress. It was still hard knowing that he might have to watch that happen again, or even worse have to see Cloud 9 lose the game. Sure, he was friends with Daerek, but compared to the guys on C9, it wasn't close. That was mainly because of Zach, but Andy and Reapered were his friends as well, not as close as him and Zach(no one was), but Will still cared about them. It was slightly questionable if Will cared about Jensen in the slightest, but over the years Zach has slowly convinced him that Jensen actually wasn't the spawn of Satan whose main goal was to make his life miserable. Will would now say his feelings towards the Dane were neutral, maybe leaning towards somewhat friends, but only by the number of days in which Will was on C9 that Jensen didn't make him want to kill himself, which wasn't many. 

Just as Will was thinking about one Danish midlaner, he caught sight of another. The difference was that he cared about this one more. Søren never showed emotion when watching games, always remaining calm and talking about what the next move for each team should be. This time though, he was wearing his heart on his sleeve, or in this case face. It was clear who Søren wanted to win; it wasn't like it took a genius to figure it out, but Will would still classify himself as one. Everyone knew how close Søren and Dennis were, and hearing what happened in the game before his own, Will knew Søren was blaming himself. The man got a Penta after refusing to play the whole game, good thing he read some patch notes about Zoe getting nerfed. Will was tempted to go over and say something to Søren, but he didn't know what to say. It was obvious that Kevin was already saying everything that Will would, and it wasn't like they were the best of friends. Sure, they were friends, but the last thing Søren probably wanted was to be the center of attention because of his own self-pity. So Will settled with turning his attention to the game, which was uneventful compared to the first blood, and only looked over at Søren every minute or so. He didn't do it because he wanted to, he did it because he couldn't help himself from staring at Søren's face, which was more emotional than Will had ever seen it before. 

Will noticed that he wasn't the only one glancing over at the Dane. He picked up on a few ex-teammates and even a few current ones, some making it more obvious than others. Will also noticed that Søren could tell that people were watching him, and he tried to make himself as unnoticeable as possible, thus making himself as small as possible while hiding between Kevin and the wall. Sadly for him, that made people want to look at him even more. On the other hand, people soon got distracted by the fact that a certain newly out LCS player was unconscious again, that all the attention quickly left Søren. That probably wasn't the best circumstance, but at least Søren could take a break from being watched.

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Hector watched the game with mixed feelings. On the one hand, his team was slightly ahead because they got first blood, but on the other, he had seen teams easily throw an early lead. He wished that the game could just stop there and Tristan could wake up, but that would never happen. Hector had made Optic Gaming into a nation. He had a few failures here and there but for the most part, everything turned out alright in the end. That would not be the case if arguably one of the best western midlaners was stuck unconscious because he had failed as an owner to put together a winning team. Hector knew that he would never forgive himself if Tristan was stuck asleep because, at the end of the day, it was on him. It was his responsibility as an owner to make sure all of his players were safe, as well as find the right staff to help put together a winning team. Hector failed in that aspect.

“They’re ahead, stop thinking the worst thing possible will happen,” Matt interrupted his friend’s thoughts. Matt could tell he was zoning out from watching the actual game and being a former Optic member himself, Matt knew how much responsibility Hector took for every failed attempt at a team or idea. Matt had learned a lot from Hector about business and running an esports organization, but he did teach(or at least tried to teach) Hector a few things as well. One of the lessons that didn’t stick with Hector was that he wasn’t responsible for everyone, and sometimes things are just out of his hands. Matt tried his best to prove his point to Hector, but he was as stubborn as Matt was, so it didn’t necessarily turn out the best.

Hector looked at Matt through the screen as if he was crazy, “Ahead for the first 5 minutes, that is barely any time in this game. I may not fully understand it, but I know teams have won from greater deficits than this.” It was true, his team was only ahead by a kill and a few hundred gold.

Matt shook his head, “When are you going to learn? Be positive, don’t expect the worst of a good situation. I swear every time I talk to you I have to tell you this,” Matt chuckled a bit. He couldn’t help laugh at how stubborn Hector was being. His team wasn’t crushing it by a lot, but they were ahead. Matt’s thoughts were interrupted by the in-game announcer saying, “Double kill.”

“I told you, this is why I don’t say anything until after we won a game,” Hector replied as he watched the duo in the bot lane die from a ganking purple bug.

“Unfortunate setback,” Matt said. He did truly hope that Hector's team would be able to win. The owner would hate to see his friend go through having one of his players remaining unconscious. If it was Matt’s team who was fighting for their lives, Matt knew that Hector would be there for him. It was only right to be there for Hector. 

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Jesper jolted awake. He was baffled when he noticed that he was in his own bed. When he turned to his left he was even more baffled to see Alfonso asleep next to him. Jesper relaxed, but also couldn't shake the fact that this could all be another illusion, another trick. That everything he saw was just an illusion to get his hopes up, but then he looked at Alfonso again. It seemed impossible for every little detail from how he always slept with a hand over Jesper's chest, to how their feet were tangled together to be magically conjured. Those small details were only known by two people, and the black-cloaked man in his nightmare was not one of them. Jesper slowly intertwined his hand with the one that was resting on his chest. It felt like Alfonso, it was Alfonso. This caused the sleeping man to stir, and eventually open his eyes. His eyes were a deep chocolate that Jesper loved looking into, but more importantly, they were his. 

"You? Awake before me? I don't know whether to be worried or proud," Alfonso joked, before he gave Jesper his good morning kiss, just another detail the two of them were the only two to know about. Instead of just a peck on the lips like the kiss usually was, Jesper wanted more. He wanted to be even more positive that this was his Alfonso, not some made up entity whose only purpose was to torture him. 

"And what was that for?" Alfonso asked after the two pulled away from each other, hands still intertwined. Alfonso started rubbing circles with his thumb on Jesper's index finger, waiting for him to answer. 

Jesper didn't want to tell his boyfriend that he had a nightmare and wanted to make sure that he was an actual person and not a figment of his imagination. So, he went with the cuter answer, "What? I can't just kiss you for a few more seconds than usual without something being wrong?"

"Trust me, there was nothing wrong with that," Alfonso smirked as he leaned forward to kiss Jesper once again. He pulled away, the grin on his face even bigger than before, "But I gotta go, don't want any of the guys to find out about this." He moved to get out of the bed, but before he could Jesper grabbed him, pulling him back into his chest. 

"Okay, seriously, what's wrong? You're not acting like yourself Jesper," Alfonso said, concern lacing his voice as he looked his boyfriend in the eyes.

_Nothing's wrong_ , a voice in their heads chimed in. Alfonso looked as though he almost screamed when he heard it. However, he did scream when a hand hoisted him out of the bed and placed his feet on the floor.  _Just repaying some debts._

Jesper couldn't look away from Alfonso, his eyes wide with horror as he tried to fight against the cloaked figure. Jesper didn't move. He didn't see the point. There was nothing he could do, and after all, this was all just a dream, forced on him by the man that is about to kill the fake Alfonso.

"Why aren't you helping me?" Alfonso screamed at Jesper, it made him cringe. 

"There's no point," Jesper replied plainly, "This is all fake. It's not real, and neither are you." He wished it was real, not the man that was about to kill Alfonso, but the part where everything was just a nightmare, a dream. 

"What the fuck are you talking about? How am I not real? Don't you love me?" Those words broke Jesper. To even think that any version of Alfonso, real or fake, didn't know how much he cared destroyed Jesper. Before he got to say anything, a knife sliced through Alfonso's throat, and tears began to fall from Jesper's eyes. It didn't matter that he knew everything was fake, it all looked so real, Alfonso looked so real. 

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Matt tried to look for a pick, tried to catch the Ezreal, which was probably his first mistake. Trying to catch one of the most mobile marksmen wasn’t the smartest idea, but he still did it. He still activated predator and flashed into the middle of five people. He still couldn’t get to the Ezreal, and instead ultied the Braum. He still instantly died because his team was walled off by a Taliyah wall. Matt was now surrounded by darkness, unable to know if his team somehow won a team fight without him. The answer was most likely no unless Thomas was able to land a five-man shock wave or Daerek had a God-tier Rakan ulti. All of those possibilities being very unlikely. Matt knew he screwed up. He was overconfident, thinking that he could get to Zach. It would most likely cost him the baron, if not the game. Matt could only hope that the other team that lost their game would be an easier opponent. Matt hated the fact that this situation had made him hope that another team had lost, and would be an “easy opponent,” but he knew this game was on him. He lost this game for his team, for Tristan, and he hoped he would never do that again.

A pull in his stomach started to emerge, and he was soon in the fountain. Matt took a breath before he noticed that no one was talking on the coms. He asked if anyone was there, but got no response. All he heard was silence since the rift didn’t really have any sound besides the stereotypical monster noises, which he heard none of at the current moment. Matt stepped off the fountain, slowly started to venture around his base, which to his shock, was not broken into yet. Matt than noticed them, the group of 5 players and baron-uped minions barreling down the midlane. There was a tier 2 turret outside of the base, but Cloud 9 destroyed it within seconds. Matt stood his ground, waiting to see if any of his teammates would respawn in the near future, but it didn’t seem like it.

Matt tried to kill the minions as best he could, but there were a lot of them, and he wasn’t a marksman. He decided to give the mid inhibitor turret and inhibitor, thinking they would go to another lane, but that wasn’t the case. They instead decided to march straight into the base, looking to end. Matt tried to stall them as much as he could, but they were just ignoring him, hitting the turrets. As Matt tried to kill the Ezreal, he heard Thomas respawn. The nexus turrets were destroyed though, the only thing remaining between him and losing another game was the nexus, and Matt wasn’t going to see it break, one way or another. His skin stung with attacks from the minions, but he didn’t care. Matt was either going to win or die trying. He would prefer the former, but as he felt himself get weaker and weaker, he knew it would be the later. Matt knew that his team was going to lose because of him. Matt knew Tristan might remain asleep because of him. 

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Jesper woke up with tears running down his face while being cradled by Alfonso. He should be used to it, but it wasn't something he wanted to get used to. Jesper wanted to get used to being open with his relationship around their friends, but waking up after watching Alfonso die was not something he could ever get used to. As soon as he woke up, Alfonso pulled him into a tight hug, and Jesper curled up like he was a baby. He was emotionally drained, and the most he could do was let out uneven breaths to signal that he was at least breathing. Jesper leaned into Alfonso's body more, happy that he always seemed to radiate heat. 

"I'm so sorry, this is all my fault," Jesper felt himself wince as he heard Alfonso say that. He had told him to never say those words again, because he heard them so much already, from one of the other Alfonsos. Jesper hated that his boyfriend thought everything was his fault, it wasn't like he was the one that was giving him nightmares. It was the mysterious cloaked man, that Jesper had so many questions about. Those questions would probably never be answered, but he wanted one answered above all the others: Why? It made no sense to Jesper why a man would use his magic powers to kidnap an esports league. Magic could be used for so many other things, including kidnapping someone who has much more money than all of the players combined. This situation made less sense than a drunk Luka, and Luka could handle his alcohol as well as a toddler could handle not getting his way: not very well. 

"It's okay," Alfonso whispered as he started to draw circles on Jesper's back, "I'm right here, and you're safe." Jesper hoped that was true. He hoped that sentence was true so badly, but hope didn't mean anything. It didn't mean he wouldn't have another nightmare again, it didn't mean that everything that he went through so far would result in Alfonso staying alive. That was his greatest fear, for Alfonso to die. Jesper didn't know much about his kidnapper, but he did know that he didn't just say that Alfonso would die permanently for no reason. Maybe it was to torture him, maybe it was a real threat, either way, Jesper just wanted to go home and snuggle under the covers with Alfonso, to be away from all the hecticness. 

_I think safe is a relative term_ , the voice boomed in Jesper's mind. He immediately wrapped his arms around Alfonso's torso, making sure that he was still there, and no one would be able to separate the two without a fight. 

"Hey," Alfonso said in a sweet voice, "Look at me," he smiled as he pulled Jesper in for a kiss. It was reassuring, yet Jesper couldn't help but feel like something was off. As he separated from Alfonso and opened his eyes Jesper saw why. A pure black cloak was draped over Alfonso, the black cloak that Jesper despised so much. Then, Alfonso's sweet smile turned into a bone-chilling grin. His face contorted in ways that Jesper never felt possible. He jumped away from what he once believed was his boyfriend, a look of shock, disgust, and sadness on his face.

"What did you do to him?" Jesper asked, as he slowly inched his way farther away from the black cloaked Alfonso. Jesper didn't know what to feel, or if this was real. He couldn't tell the difference between dream and reality. There was no real difference for him.

_I did nothing, you did_ , the voice replied as he reached into the cloak to pull out a knife. Jesper tensed, it was always a knife, it was always slices. He hated it. The laugh that came out of the figure was a mix of Alfonso's voice and something almost demonic. Jesper was forced to watch, he literally couldn't move his head. Alfonso slashed his own throat, and Jesper felt like screaming, crying, and every other release he could possibly do. Alfonso's body stayed standing for a few seconds, floating in the air, before it collapsed into a heap on the floor. Jesper cried. All he wanted was for it to stop. Jesper just wanted everything to stop and become magically better. 

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Søren didn't know where to look. He was torn between Jesper, who was currently passed out on the ground, and the game, which was closer than he wished it was. Søren quickly decided that he could do nothing to influence the result of the game, so he joined Alfonso on the floor. The teams that had woken up most recently had all started bombarding Alfonso with questions, so Søren decided to take it upon himself (with the help of whichever player randomly decided to chime in) to help answer all of the questions asked. The only people that didn't know about the mess that happened with Jesper was FlyQuest and Golden Guardians, so it wasn't like there was that much to explain. 

After most questions were answered, Søren turned his attention to Alfonso, who hadn't answered a single question but instead was trying to make Jesper as comfortable as possible on the cold floor. Alfonso was currently holding Jesper's hand and rubbing circles with his thumb while whispering something that Søren couldn't quite make out. As he moved closer, Alfonso noticed and as he turned around Søren hated the look on his face. Alfonso looked as though he wanted to cry, to just break down, but couldn't bring himself to actually do it. 

Before Søren could speak, Alfonso sighed, "Don't try to convince me this isn't my fault," and turned back to face his boyfriend. 

It was now Søren's turn to sigh, "Trust me, I know there isn't a way of doing that. You're almost as stubborn as him," he nodded his head towards Jesper before continuing, "Anyway, I was going to say that you shouldn't worry about him so much, he will be fine. The evil dude wants to kill you, remember?"

Alfonso turned to face Søren, "Same could be said about Dennis," the Dane immediately got red, "I'm not blind, I can see you worrying about him." Søren silently cursed Alfonso and how observant he was. 

Lucky for Søren, all of Alfonso's attention turned to Jesper, who seemed as though he was slowly stirring awake. It started with a slight change in breathing, then a gentle squeeze of the hand that Alfonso was holding, then the opening of his now red eyes. Søren saw Alfonso let out a visible sigh of relief and moved closer to Jesper, but the other moved away from Alfonso.

Alfonso looked hurt as Jesper got into a sitting position and asked, "Is this real, or is this just another trick?" Søren wanted to do nothing more than in that moment to punch the person who was behind all of this, or get Kevin to punch him(he was the only one to actually go to the gym). 

"What are you talking about?" Alfonso asked his boyfriend before saying, "Of course this is real. I'm right here and you're safe."

Jesper cringed at Alfonso's words, "That's what he said."

Søren was about to interrupt his botlane's conversation when he heard, "Thank God, my hair's back to normal and I can feel my head." He turned around to see Cloud 9 looking around rather confused, and Søren just couldn't help but smile. He was safe. Dennis was safe. They won, and Dennis wouldn't be stuck unconscious because of him. 

"I personally preferred the Ez hair, you would get so many bitches if you style it like that," Will made everyone laugh. He walked towards Zach and gave him a bro hug. Søren shook his head,  _those two are quite the pair_ , he thought to himself as he waited. 

When Dennis finally did appear all of C9 practically tackled him, and almost knocked him over. Søren watched from where he was sitting near his botlane, who were now cuddling, not wanting to interfere with Dennis bonding with his team. Søren felt eyes on him, and he turned to see Jesper and Alfonso staring at him. He gave them a questioning look, and then Alfonso untangled himself from Jesper to pull Søren to his feet. Before the midlaner could say anything, he was pushed in the direction of Dennis, who noticed immediately. Søren felt awkward as he went up to his former teammate; he had no idea what to say or do. 

Dennis smiled, "Don't start apologizing for actually playing the fucking game and not inting." Søren laughed at how well his friend knew him. It certainly made it easier for Søren to pull Dennis into a hug.

"I'm glad you're safe," Søren whispered, as he finally let out the breath he didn't know he was holding. All of the people he cared about the most were safe, if he could even call being stuck in a mysterious room in the middle of who knows where safe. 

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Jack smiled, his boys won, they won and that was all that mattered. He was still worried about them, oh God was he worried, but they were out of what seemed to be the immediate danger of being the ultimate loser. He heard that all too familiar beep on his phone, and quickly opened it to see a picture of Zach and Nicolaj practically on top of Dennis while Eric, Andy, and Reapered were surrounding them. They were something else, that was for sure. 

Jack turned his phone to the other owners, which caused Andy and Steve to laugh at his team's antics. Rick's expression didn't change. Jack couldn't blame him. His team gave up the chance of winning and being safe; they were still at risk. Jack knew that Echo Fox should be able to beat Clutch, but he didn't know if the person behind all of this was going to interfere or not. Everyone was so focused on the games, and if their team would wake up the sleeping member, nobody questioned what happened after the photo was taken. Nobody questioned how they were going to find the people who magically disappeared from their beds in what seemed like a blink of an eye. Sure the police were actively trying to locate their players, and trace back the live stream to a location, but they were failing. Nobody had any idea where they were, and if they were even still alive after those photos were taken. Jack tried to stay calm, but he couldn't help thinking: Was the photo he just got the last he would ever see of his boys?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed, and all that jazz. Leave a kudos if you liked it and if you have any questions/comments fire away. Just wanted to thank anyone who is still reading this for putting up with me, and my awful upload schedule. I hope it's worth it.


	9. Bracket 2 Game 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *insert excuse of why it took so long* Oops, it's been almost 2 months. Sorry, you all probably hate me and forgot the storyline by now. Personal life go boom(in a positive and negative way). Hopefully, I will finish this by next year. 
> 
> *Warning: graphic depictions of violence

Apollo took a breath as he waited as he waited to play the next game. He had to try to relax, they were playing against Echo Fox, so it definitely wasn't going to be easy. Apollo just hoped that either Huni or Dardoch were unconscious because they had a tendency to pop off whenever they played against their team. It made him wonder though, how they actually lost. Apollo assumed it had to be Huni that was unconscious because no team with Huni could lose to Golden Guardians. It was ironic though, how both ex-Fnatic members were unconscious. Did Reignover end up asleep as well? Apollo was a rational person, so he figured there had to be some sort of pattern to the people picked to be at risk. What that pattern was, he had no idea. Apollo just hoped that he could save Fabian from what is hopefully the only thing they need to worry about. 

Apollo was shaken out of his thoughts by Nick, "What's the gameplan? We're up against a top focused team, so are we matching or focusing somewhere else?" Nick had to say something productive, he couldn't just sit there with his thoughts, because they weren't exactly happy thoughts. He couldn't help imagine Fabian being tortured in a mental prison, or being stuck there the rest of his life because of them. It wouldn't be fair to him, so he had to get the team focused on the game.

"It depends who's asleep. Try to pressure the coach as much as possible," David replied, he was the coach after all and could come up with a decent draft to try to sure up their main weakness, aka him. David just wanted the game to start already. He hated thinking about all the different outcomes that could happen.

"I think Huni is the one asleep," Apollo added to the conversation, "I find it hard to believe that Echo Fox could lose to Golden Guardians without him playing." He was almost positive that was the case. 

"Does that mean I finally am getting off tank duty?" caused everyone on Clutch to smile as they felt the pull in their stomachs. 

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_Welcome to Summoner's Rift, and remember there is no way out of this!_

"Glad to see that hasn't changed," Nick murmured as he composed himself after the whole teleporting thing. He wasn't going to pretend that he understood how magic worked, but he would appreciate it if this would be his last time feel himself every inch of himself literally being pulled apart and then pushed back together. It wasn't a pleasant feeling. 

"Sarcasm?" Huni questioned, he wasn't the best at knowing if someone was using it or not, but he was gradually working on figuring it out. It helped that his team used sarcasm quite a lot, so he was catching on to it. 

Adrian laughed, "I'm proud of you," as the team moved their way towards the blue barrier, ready to pick the champions they previously picked. Obviously, they would have won that game, so they picked Camille, Rengar, Taliyah, Kalista, and Braum. At least this time, Adrian knew there was no way for them to surrender because of Josh's feelings. 

The team waited, most likely for the other team to chose their champions, in complete silence. There was nothing to say, the only reason they lost the previous game was because they surrendered the game for Josh. They all respected him that much that they actually allowed Josh to stay unconscious for Sam. It may have been a hard choice to make, but they all knew that Josh would keep his promise of never talking to them again if they finished the game. Plus they all believed that they could win a game against a lesser team. So, the silence continued until the grunts of changing into their champions started. As they got up and attempted to shake off the headaches they heard,  _Minions spawn in 30 seconds, maybe this game won't be as much of a blow out like the last time you two met_.

"That was harsh, even though that was true, sheesh," Johnny laughed out as he and Adrian made their way to the Red Buff pit, followed by Nick who was a few steps behind them. He walked into the bush with Johnny, who placed his Braum shield again the wall. 

"Let's hope for Josh's sake that we do make it like last time, so what do the solo lanes look like?" Nick asked, trying to get a sense of how he was going to path.

"Two Camilles," was said at the same time as, "Coach Swain mid," so it took a minute for everyone to realize what was happening. 

"Wait," Nick waited a few seconds to get his bearings before continuing, "Having two people playing Camille is possible, and Febiven is the one asleep?" Nick questioned, making sure he heard the two Koreans correctly. When both replied "yes" Nick took a breath before he took agro from the Red Buff, it was surely going to be an interesting game. 

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"I did not realize that was a thing that was possible," remarked Zach, who was currently staring at the two Camilles in the top lane. He was currently sitting on the floor by his whole team as well as Will, who joked about being an honorary C9 player anyway. It was nice though, not having to worry about one of his friends being stuck unconscious because of him. Zach was just glad they were able to win their game. It was hard making another team lose, and have to go through the whole process again, but Zach was just relieved it wasn't him.

"Maybe we are just seeing double," Will joked, "But by their coms, they are finding it hard to believe as well." He wasn't lying, both teams were taken back by the fact that both picked Camille. Clutch was a little more shocked that Huni was actually in the game since they believed he was the one asleep, but oh did they get a rude awakening. 

Zach shook his head, "Sometimes you're the biggest idiot I know," it wasn't a lie, even though goofball may have been a better word. 

"Only sometimes?" Will asked, sounding offended.

"Two certain Danish midlaners give you a run for your money," Zach laughed as he got slapped by Jensen.

"I have done nothing. Why me?" Jensen questioned Zach, who was now lying on his back laughing hysterically. 

Will smirked, "You don't have to do anything stupid like killing yourself over and over like that one," he nodded his head towards Søren who had no idea the conversation was happening since he was too busy catching Dennis up on everything that he had missed, "You Jensen, are just naturally an idiot." 

Jensen crossed his arms as he contemplated what the consequences would be if he asked the cloaked guy to make Will unconscious, but he decided against it since Zach would most likely murder him. Actually, a lot more people than just Zach would want to murder him. So, Jensen just decided to give Will his best death glare as he turned back to the game. Jensen was no toplaner, but he didn't think that being pushed under your turrets as a Camille and being 20 cs down was a good way to play the champion. He made a mental note of banning Camille in soloq if he knew Huni could possibly be on the enemy. Solo did not seem like he was having a good time, and the coms definitely supported Jensen's assumption. He was just glad that his games were over, and none of his friends or teammates were at risk anymore, but Jensen couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to this game that was currently being played with them.

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Rick didn't want his face to contort into the smirk it was, but he couldn't help it. He didn't want to be happy at another team's expense, but his boys were doing it, they were winning the game. Rick didn't like getting his hopes up when it came to League of Legends, a game in which a snowball could be stopped because of one small mistake. He didn't understand the technical side of it by any means, but he could tell when his team had the upper hand, and they did. All the lanes were either even or ahead, and they managed to secure an early infernal drake. Rick hated the fact that he was cheering against Clutch so much, especially since Febiven seemed like a good guy. It was just that he talked to Josh, he believed in Josh, he watched Josh become more mature, and he didn't want the kid's life to be taken from him. None of the players deserved that, but it wasn't his choice to make. 

That's what really struck Rick. He could do nothing. He was indeed very powerless. All he could do was watch the games. He couldn't call someone to make the problem go away. He couldn't comfort the players and then everything would be alright. He couldn't even comfort his son, who was currently in Miami, still celebrating the win, and probably passed out since he hadn't replied to any of Rick's messages yet. Rick was worried what his son would think of this whole mess, he hoped that his team would be able to win this game so his son wouldn't have to worry like he was doing. 

Rick pulled himself out of his thoughts, wanting to focus on his surroundings instead of letting his mind take over. He learned a long time ago that focusing on the present instead of the what ifs was a much better way to live life. He was sitting on a long gray couch in the TSM house, Andy and Steve were to his right and Jack was on the left. It was twenty minutes into the game and both teams were contesting for baron vision. Just as Nick was about to place a ward down in the bush outside of the baron pit he was hit by a Thresh hook. Rick's heart sunk. 

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Josh hated every aspect of being chained and not being able to move. The almost total darkness didn't bother him in the least, but not being able to move around bothered him to no end. It got to the point where he had very visible marks on his skin from the shackles around his wrists and most likely had the same marks around his ankles. He had tried to stop pulling at the chains, knowing that they wouldn't help, but ever since he got back from being with the other unconscious players his anxiety had increased. It was one thing knowing vaguely who ended up in their own personal dream prisons in the beginning, but now, he talked to them, he had conversations with them. He didn't necessarily even dislike any of them, which was rare. Josh would never describe himself as a people person, but the guys that still had a chance of being unconscious forever weren't total dicks, which Josh realized high key sucked. The worst one out of all of the people left was him, but he had already done his good deed for the year. 

That brought his brain back to Sam. He tried his best not to worry that something would happen to him since he made his team forfeit, but he couldn't help thinking about Sam being in trouble because of a decision made for him. Josh would probably never hear the end of it. Sam would probably message him in the middle of the night calling him an idiot for making his team lose to save him, but it was Sam. He was that ball of sunshine that just so happened to be able to deal with one of the most toxic players to ever exist; him as a teenager. 

His thoughts of Sam were interrupted by a loud bang followed by a grunt. Josh looked up to see his coach on the ground, and couldn't help but chuckle a bit. It took him a second to realize what that meant though, it was his first time seeing Nick since when he told him to forfeit. Josh went to be the polite, reformed self he was and help Nick from the ground, but that ended with him almost falling as well because of the shackles he forgot about. Surprisingly, after one is chained up for a while, they get used to it. Nick ended up getting up on his own as Josh asked, "So what'd I miss?"

Nick shook his head, "Well for starters, a certain toplaner wants to kill you for making us lose last game," Josh wasn't surprised, he and Huni were very similar in the sense that they both hated losing, but would for the sake of their loved ones, well maybe Josh was a little more willing to do the latter. Nick continued, "We're currently playing Clutch, there are two Camilles, I know, I didn't think it was possible either. I may have been an idiot and went to ward when I wasn't supposed to than Thresh God Hakuho hooked me. I know it's hard to believe that a player like me got caught once, but it happens."

Josh shook his head at this, "Yeah, I'm definitely shocked you only got caught  _once_ ," he said while putting emphasis on the last word. Josh waited a minute before continuing, "So how's the game going?"

"It was going really well, everyone was either ahead or tied with their lane opponent, we were up in kills with a steady snowball. Baron just got up when I died though, so I don't know what's going to happen. Nick sat down and checked his death timer which had 15 seconds left. A lot could happen in 15 seconds. 

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Nick knew that trying to take the baron was risky, but he was tired of slowly losing the game. He knew that everything could be lost in that moment, but he hoped that it wouldn't. He hoped that they would secure the baron than all they would have to do after would be easy. They would help wake Fabian up, and everything would be okay, well as okay as someone who is kidnapped could be. 

The baron was at 7,000 health and was going down pretty quickly, all they needed were a few more seconds than the game would be theirs, but it's never that easy. David fell to the ground in a matter of seconds when Kalista ultied Braum into him and immediately all of Echo Fox followed. Colin tried to get the Kalista, but he was focused by everyone. Apollo free fired on everyone, but the Ezreal didn't have enough damage to take them down fast enough. LirA ultied as well as Nick, but by then it was already a lost fight that couldn't be changed by a Skarner ulting a Thresh into a team that barely had any damage left. One by one the baron as well as Echo Fox killed every single member of Clutch. 

Apollo was the last one alive as he Arcane Shifted out of the baron pit, but the Camille quickly followed him and killed him in a matter of seconds. All of Clutch's hope to get the baron were gone, no steal was going to happen, no stalling. They lost the baron and maybe the game. All they could do was try and hold on.

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Søren tried his best not to be awkward around Dennis, but that wasn't easy. They had been best friends for a while, but they hadn't talked that much after Dennis left TSM. It wasn't easy for Søren to talk to Dennis since he was still kind of embarrassed by how he almost let his feelings get to him. Dennis was his best friend, and Søren didn't want to lose him. It wasn't easy being good friends with people on different teams that you have to play against because nobody ever knows how they will react to losing. If it wasn't for the fact that Søren trusted C9 to win a game, he would have very much pulled a Josh and most likely would have lost the game for his team. Mithy probably would have killed him, but if it meant that Dennis was safe, he would do it. 

"Do you think they have any chance of coming back from this?" interrupted Søren's thoughts. He remembered that Dennis was indeed sitting right next to him, and his eyebrows were probably scrunching together to show that he was lost in thought. It was a tell that Søren hated having, but he couldn't break the habit no matter how much he tried. 

"They could, but I wouldn't bet on it," Søren replied. All of Clutch's outer turrets were down and their top lane inhibitor turret was also down. Huni was split pushing like a madman, and if they lost one team fight they could easily lose the game. It didn't look good for them in the slightest. 

 Dennis looked at Søren, taking a breath before changing the topic, "I hope you know I would have done the same thing as you."

Søren turned his head and made eye contact with Dennis, "What are you talking about?" He knew exactly what Dennis was talking about but just had to hear it from him.

"I would have struggled to play if I knew you were the one at risk. You're my best friend Søren, I know these past few months we haven't talked as much as before, but this whole thing has made me realize how much I don't want us to just stop being friends since we're on different teams," Dennis poured his heart out to his best friend. It took him being at risk of dying to realize just how much he cared about Søren, how much he didn't want them to drift apart. 

Søren didn't know what to say, he and Dennis had never been one to talk about feelings, well mostly him. "No matter what, I promise I won't let us drift apart, no matter what teams we are on. We will be best friends until we are separated by inevitability."

Dennis stuck his hand out, "Til death do us part."

Søren clasped his hand and smiled, "Til death do us part."

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Huni hid in the botlane bush near Clutch's base waiting for Solo to walk by without knowing he was there. The rest of the team was by the baron, doing the continued dance, but none of his team had spotted him yet. Huni knew that if he killed him that they could win, he just had to be patient. It was hard though, being patient wasn't his strong suit, but he knew that if he wanted to wake up Josh, patience was the best option. Even though waking up Josh meant making Fabian lose, he had to. Josh trusted him to get the job done, and he knew that Clutch could beat Optic. That's what he had to keep telling himself, that Fabian would be okay. There was no world where Fabian wouldn't be able to wake up. Huni wasn't going to let his feelings get in the way. Fabian was his best friend on Fnatic, they were inseparable, but things change. They may still be friends, but things change, and friends drift apart. That was life. 

He pushed his thoughts of Fabian to the back of his mind as he noticed Solo walk past the bush he was in. After a second, Huni used his hook shot and ult combo to lock down Solo, who was very far behind. It only took a few seconds for him to die as Huni waited for Solo's ult to run out. 

Huni quickly said, "Top dead," to his team over the coms as he continued to split push, now getting very close to the inhibitor turret.

He then heard, "They're engaging, push to end," from his coach, and that's exactly what he did. Huni quickly took down the inhibitor turret as well as the inhibitor and was on the nexus turrets in a matter of seconds. He made quick work of the turrets as he heard his team winning the fight near the baron pit. They had won, Josh was going to be okay. Huni heard his teammates complimenting him for getting such a big lead, but he didn't focus on their words. Instead, he focused on the nexus in front of him. As he kicked it won last time, the red glass shattered sending an unconscious Josh towards him. 

Huni caught Josh, and at last, he was safe. Josh's life was no longer at risk.

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He was bored, and he hated knowing that his team was fighting to save him, but he didn't know what was happening. He would have preferred if he could actually watch the game instead of staring into darkness for an eternity. 

_Well don't worry my dear little Joshie, your team won, and you'll get a change in scenery real soon_ , the hooded man came out of nowhere. He appeared from the darkness, and his voice made Josh jump. The man kept taking steps towards Josh, and Josh stepped back as much as he could. Something felt wrong, it felt like even though his team supposedly won something bad was going to happen.

_Now, why would you think that?_  the man projected into his mind,  _Oh wait, is it because you purposely lost one of my games, and ruined it for me?_ The cloaked man moved closer to Josh, just out of arm's reach. Josh tried to pull on the chains and break free of them, but it didn't work, he wasn't strong enough. He closed his eyes in preparation for whatever was to come, but nothing happened. Curious, Josh opened his eyes, but he immediately regretted it. He saw the black hooded man wielding a knife inches away from his throat. Josh tried pulling at his chains even harder than before but to no avail. He felt a sharp pain on his right wrist than felt as though he was being teleported again. The last thing he heard before he couldn't hear anymore was a maniacal laugh. 

When Josh opened his eyes after all of his cells were put back into place, he noticed that he was in an all-white room, other than the few parts of the floor where the blood from the slit on his wrist splashed to the floor. He quickly wrapped his hand around his wrist, trying to stop the bleeding the best he could before getting up to try to find a way out of the room. He didn't know how long he would be alone, so he got to work as quickly as he could. He circled the room, trying to find a way out, but he couldn't. There wasn't a door or even any vents in the room, vents he could see, anyway. 

Josh didn't know what else to do, so he decided to ram into the walls, trying to find a weak spot. He eventually found a weak spot, sadly for him, that weak spot was his shoulder that was starting to throb from all the pain he had caused it from trying to get out of the room. He let out a frustrated scream as he rammed into one of the walls again. This time, the force he hit the wall at launched him to the floor and made him take his hand around his bleeding wrist and move it to his shoulder. Josh was almost positive he had at least dislocated it. He had gone from being trapped in an all-black neverending nothingness while being shackled to an all-white room with no way out, and it wasn't much better. It reminded him of a hospital, and he was not too fond of them. In fact, he hated them and hated being trapped in a room with no way out.

Out of anger, Josh screamed, "You wanna do something, come on and kill me then! I know you can hear me, you always do! What, are you scared of me? Can't face me like a real man without your magic? You fucking coward! Is that it, are you scared of-" before Josh could finish his screaming, a force picked him up off the ground and pinned him to the wall. His arms were above his head, blood from his wrist was dripping down his arm and started to form a small puddle on the floor. 

_Oh Joshie, if I fought you like a man, you'd already be dead. So, are you ready?_ the voice in his head asked as the black cloaked figure appeared in the middle of the room, knife in hand. Josh tried to fight against whatever was holding him, but it was no use. He was already tired from ramming into the walls, and whatever force was holding him wouldn't budge.

The figure walked closer to him, each step closer made the air around him even colder,  _Remember, you asked for this Joshie. Now, I think it's time for the fun to begin, I want this whole room painted red by the time I'm done with you_ , he slashed across Josh's chest. Josh let out a scream as blood poured from the cut in his chest, staining the floor below him. 

_You know what? If I want the whole room red, this method won't work, but don't worry, I have an idea._  Josh was then removed from the wall, but shockingly to him, he didn't fall to the ground. Instead, he remained floating mid-air in the center of the room. Josh screamed as he noticed the cloaked-man float towards him, cutting his leg in the process. 

The man laughed as he cut Josh's other leg, causing him to scream once again.  _I have a much better idea in mind_ , he projected into Josh's mind as the room around him started to rotate and spin in different directions. He felt as if he was in the middle of a Rubics Cube, different parts of the same wall were moving in different directions, and at that point, he couldn't even tell which was a wall and what was the floor or ceiling. He assumed when floating in a spinning room, that information wasn't too relevant. 

Josh let out a groan as he felt the knife being dragged across his back. He tried his best to curl up into a ball, but the force allowing him to float was also making each part of his body be held out as far as possible. Just when Josh didn't think he could feel much worse, he started spinning. At first, he thought he was just imagining it, because the way the room kept moving, but then he quickly realized what was happening as he started to spin even faster. 

_Now was Samson really worth all of this trouble?_  Josh was nearly on the verge of passing out as well as throwing up from all the spinning but he managed to get out one word, "Yes."

_Wrong answer my dear Joshie._

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Rick was so relieved when his team finally managed to close out the game, especially Huni since the lead he got was the biggest. It shocked him just how good that kid really was at League. Rick got a pat on the back from Jack as he watched the television screen turn from the game into having the Optic logo as well as the Clutch logo surrounded by darkness. That was when it finally hit him that Josh was safe. He didn't have anything to worry about anymore. His team had won, and that was the end of all the immediate danger they were in. Rick could only hope that his players were somehow teleported back to the real world as soon as the last game was played. 

"So, can we see the picture?" Andy asked, it was an innocent question, but that was when Rick realized that he hadn't gotten any picture. There was no ominous buzz coming from his phone, nor did he miss it. He checked anyway, but there was no message from an anonymous number. Rick started to panic slightly, when Andy's phone didn't buzz, something had happened to Zven. He couldn't help but think that something happened to Josh. 

Steve spoke up, seeing Rick starting to panic, something he rarely ever did, "Really, I think we should all just relax, maybe the guy just forgot to send the picture. I mean, what's the worse that could have happened?"

Rick than heard his phone buzz like the others before him, and when he opened his messages, he dropped his phone on the ground and covered his mouth in horror.

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"Sam, calm down, you don't know if it's him or not," Matt said, trying to get Sam to not make everyone in the room dizzy from watching him run around in a circle, trying to find a way out of the room they were currently in. It wasn't working, since there were zero ways out. 

Sam gave Matt a death glare, "Calm done? Are you kidding me? I can hear him screaming, and you have known Josh as long as I have to know what his screams sound like. He is in trouble, and it's my fault, so don't try to tell me to calm down." Josh, who had sacrificed his well being for him, was most likely being tortured by their kidnapper, so there was no way for him to calm down. Josh was out there somewhere, and he had to find him. Sam didn't care if he looked like a madman, or broke something trying to break down a wall, he was going to get to Josh. 

"How about," Matt suggested, "You sit down and take a few deep breaths before you do something irrational, like running into the wall." Matt hated seeing his friend like that, especially when he didn't know how to help. All he could do was prevent Sam from injuring himself. Matt reached out to grab Sam, but he backed up, just out of reach.

Sam could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on him, but he didn't care. "I'm going to find Josh, and I'm going to help him. I don't care if all of you people think I'm crazy, I will find a way to help him," Just before he was about to continue he heard a soft voice behind him say, "Sam."

Sam's world seemed to go in slow-motion as he turned around to see him, his clothes torn, blood covering most of his body. He looked like he could pass out any moment, and at that moment, he swayed forward. Sam rushed to catch Josh in his arms. He let out a whine as Sam brushed against some of the many cuts that were littering his body. Sam quickly lowered Josh to the ground, trying his best to avoid touching any of the cuts, which was hard since there was so many. Josh's breaths were labored as he laid on his back, a pool of red slowly forming around him. Sam took off his shirt and pressed it on the biggest, and what seemed to be the deepest cut that was on his chest. 

Other players started to surround them and donate their shirts as well. Matt wrapped his shirt around another deep caught on Josh's wrist. Any player or coach who had a jacket wrapped it around a different part of Josh's body that wasn't covered. Eventually, there was no part of Josh's body without a few layers of shirts and jackets on it, other than his face. There was only one cut on his face running from under his left eye to the corner of his lip, and it didn't seem that deep. Sam positioned himself so that Josh's head was in his lap, and he could run his hands through Josh's hair without getting in the way of anyone who was applying pressure to Josh's cuts.

Josh took a deep breath before asking, "Are you okay?" This made Sam really question how much blood Josh had lost because there was no way he had just asked if  _he_  was okay. 

"Do you feel like you're about to pass out? Because there is no way you just asked me if  _I_  was okay when  _you_  are the one that is currently bleeding out," Sam replied, feeling Josh's forehead to see if he had a temperature. 

This made Josh let out a chuckle, which wasn't the best since whenever Josh moved it caused him pain, "I just wanted to make sure he didn't do anything to you."

Sam was shocked by this, Josh was being so nice to him, Josh was always nice to him, but this was a new level of nice. "Hey," Sam smiled, "I never knew the Joshua Hartnett had such a soft side."

"I'm reformed, remember?" Josh joked. It was silent for a few seconds before he added, "And I care about you a lot."

Sam's jaw dropped at Josh's words. He never expected Josh to say that about anyone, let alone about him. Josh's eyes started to flutter closed as Sam replied, "I care about you so much Josh. Now, please, keep your eyes open."

"I'm tired," Josh mumbled as his eyes remained closed for a long time before opening again. 

Sam was on the verge of a heart attack, "Stay awake for me, okay, if you can't do it for yourself, do it for me," Sam pleaded as he removed Josh's head from his lap, replacing it with his hand. Sam was now on the side of Josh, leaning over him, as his hand played with Josh's hair. Sam leaned in and kissed Josh. He tried to reciprocate, but all the cuts and blood loss made it hard. It wasn't the best first kiss, but it got Sam's point across. He needed Josh to stay awake, he wanted him to stay awake, he wanted to have a long drawn out conversation of all the times both of them almost confessed how they felt, but in the end, chickened out. Samson Jackson needed Joshua Hartnett more than anything in the world. 

As Sam pulled away Josh closed his eyes, each breath he took getting shallower and shallower. "I'm sorry, I can't," Josh replied, voice raspy, eyes still closed.

"Yes you can," Sam pleaded, "You can stay awake. Please, stay awake. It took so long for us to finally have our first kiss. please don't make it our last. Please, Josh, don't do this. You're so strong, I believe in you. Please, Josh, open your eyes."

"Please, Josh don't let him win."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that happened. Comment and all that stuff. I hoped you enjoyed. Sorry, this took so long, but in all fairness, this is the longest chapter yet. Lmao, see you eventually, because I swear I'm gonna finish this. Yeet.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed. Comment what you want to see more of, and what you thought(honest opinions, I don't mind criticism). Oh, and if I don't upload for more then like two weeks, comment and yell at me to motivate my procrastinating ass.


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